


you just float through

by laurenswriting



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - College/University, Campus Bookstore, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sarcasm, Slow Burn, a lot of college course talk (i'm sorry), film major!eliott, freshman!lucas, general overuse of italics, idiots to lovers, it's mostly fluff my mecs, junior!eliott, like really light angst, overuse of the word "book", pre-med!lucas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-03-05 16:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18832447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurenswriting/pseuds/laurenswriting
Summary: he sees the boy on his first day back at work.(or: uni au in which lucas works at the campus bookstore, eliott barely looks at his syllabus, and imane rolls her eyes far too many times to be healthy)





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is brought to you by the great elu drought of april 2019
> 
> wow so this is the first thing i've written in a v long time!! scary!! i feel like i'm a lil rusty but i've had this au in my head for WEEKS and just had to get it out there
> 
> title from "float" by EDEN (v good artist, highly recommend)
> 
> un-beta'd, all mistakes are mine (also i've never worked in a bookstore in my life, much less a *campus* bookstore, so this may be wildly inaccurate)
> 
> hope you enjoy!! ♥♥

“It’s easier if you sort all the books _before_ you unwrap them, you know.” 

Lucas joins Emma in the back room, crouching down next to the large boxes she was currently unpacking and pushing a few books out of his way. She scoffs as he disrupts her system, if it can even be called that: textbooks are scattered across the floor between small piles of plastic wrap, empty boxes spread out behind her. The room is even more of a mess than usual.

“I have my methods, you have yours,” she states, ripping the plastic off of a particularly large anthropology book. “Now unpack.” 

Lucas smirks, pulling a box towards him and digging in. Getting assigned to the inventory room wasn’t his favorite part of working at the campus bookstore, but at least it was better than the register. 

They work in companionable silence, both wanting to spend as much time in the back room as possible before returning to the floor. Classes wouldn’t start for another few days but the store was already packed, students running around and trying to gather all their textbooks and supplies. Half of them would be back next week when their professors inevitably changed their syllabi, but until then, the store would be as busy as ever. Lucas had to admire their enthusiasm, though. He hadn’t even thought about buying his books yet; his employee discount didn’t kick in until next week, anyway. 

“Okay, now what the hell is this,” Emma deadpans, lifting a stack of hardcover books out of the next box and dropping them unceremoniously on the floor. “ _Why Math?_ ” She waves a copy around, its bright yellow cover flying through the air. “They really made a book called _Why Math?_ Fuck, I ask myself that every day.”

Lucas rolls his eyes, snatching the book out of Emma’s grip and tearing off the plastic wrap. “Yes, it’s a book, and some stressed out calc kid is going to be very angry if you keep it back here instead of out there.” She makes a face at him, sliding the box over to Lucas so he could deal with the rest of the copies. 

The door behind them bangs open to reveal a boy carrying another massive box of books. He sets it on the floor, wiping sweat off his brow and looking less than thrilled to be there. Lucas vaguely remembers their manager, Nico, mentioning that he called in some extra help for this week — this must be one of the students picking up extra shifts.

“One of you needs to get back out there,” the boy sighs, motioning at Emma and Lucas. “We just got a new shipment in and there’s too many customers for us to handle right now.” 

“Lucas can go,” Emma exclaims without pause, not even giving Lucas a chance to interject. “He just got here anyway.” 

He narrows his eyes at her, the traitor: their mutual hatred of working the floor was the basis of most of their at-work conversations. She gives him a smug smile in return, crumpling plastic wrap in her hand. 

“Fine,” he mutters, grabbing the math books so he can get them out on the floor. “But you’re going on register next.” 

“But —” 

“Bye, Emma.” 

Lucas pushes the door open with his shoulder, stepping back under the fluorescent lights and heading over to the textbook section. He’s immediately hit with the dull roar of dozens of students moving about.

Fuck, that kid wasn’t lying: the store is as crowded as he’s ever seen it, students ducking in and out of aisles as they search for their books. Lucas nearly gets pushed over by a girl running towards the science section, which, no matter how relatable that may be, only serves to remind him how much he hates working floor. It was only his second semester on the job (only his second semester at university, actually), but he was already _not_ looking forward to spending the next three and a half years walking up and down these aisles. 

At least he liked his co-workers. Sometimes. 

Lucas places the math books on their proper shelf, stacking them carefully so as to not knock over their neighboring textbooks. The last thing he needs is to add to the chaos of the bookstore. 

“Hey, Lucas?” He whips around to find the source of the call, spotting Imane coming towards him with _another_ stack of books in her arms. God, it never ends. “Can you bring these over to the front? One of the new kids put them in the wrong spot.” She rolls her eyes, exasperated, as Lucas takes the books from her. 

“Aren’t we kind of still the new kids, though?” he teases, shifting the texts in his arms.They had both only started at the bookstore a few months ago, right at the start of the fall semester. As two of the three new freshman employees (Emma being the third), they were considered the babies of the group, the other students always coming over to check on them and offer so-called helpful advice. It was annoying, yes, but Nico had hired a few new students this semester, so the heat should be off the three of them...for now. 

“Do your job, Lucas,” Imane says with a chuckle, giving him a light shove in the right direction. 

“Alright, alright, I’m going!”

He laughs as he walks away, dodging worried freshmen, stressed seniors, and everyone in between. It was no bother, really, going up to the front. He’s always liked working there, prefers it to the other sections of the store. They kept all of their standard fiction and nonfiction offerings up front, far away from the actual textbooks. It was relatively calm up there and it gave Lucas a chance to actually look at the books instead of just shove them on a shelf and move on. 

Lucas weaves his way through the crowds until he gets up to the fiction section, finally finding some space to breathe. He slips each book onto the shelf carefully, adding them to the bookstore’s lineup of classic and contemporary novels. His fingertips trail over the spines, taking note of the dips and curves of the titles, picking out a few that look promising. He’s in need of a new book to bring to his mom anyway.

“You’re wearing a name tag, right? Do you work here?” a frantic voice nearly yells from behind him. Lucas turns around to face an _extremely_ stressed blonde girl clutching a sheet of paper so tightly that her knuckles are going white.

“Uh, yeah, I do. Work here, that is” Lucas says slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements. “What are you looking for?” 

“Orgo,” she squeaks out and oh. That makes sense. 

“You have Thompson?” The girl glances down at her paper and nods. Lucas lets out a frustrated sigh. “He’s still asking for all four textbooks?” 

“You mean he does this every semester?” she asks incredulously, giving the wrinkled paper to Lucas. “Four textbooks for one class and I don’t know where they are or how I’m going to _afford them,_ or —” 

“Don’t worry,” he interrupts, flattening out the paper so he can read the list of book titles. Fuck, Thompson really _was_ asking for four textbooks. And none of them were cheap. He didn’t have to take Organic Chemistry until next fall but he better start saving his paychecks now. “I’ll bring you over to the science section and we can see what’s available used or for rental.” 

“Oh, thank you so much!” The girl jumps a bit, excited, and clasps her hands together. Lucas starts to walk out of the aisle, gesturing for her to follow. “I’m a transfer student and I don’t know where anything is so I started wandering around...I was just so worried about all this and, you know, it’s not like I _can’t_ take Orgo.” She’s rambling now, waving her arms around like they _weren’t_ in a crowded bookstore. Lucas is concerned, to say the least. “I’m pre-med, of course I have to! The program is so good here! And —” 

Lucas starts to tune Orgo girl out a bit, only offering the occasional nod or hum as they make their way to the back of the store. They reach a cluster of students towards the end of the fiction section, blocking their path, and Lucas scans the crowd for a way out when —

Oh. 

The boy at the end of the aisle is tall, his light brown hair mussed up and sticking out in every direction. He’s staring intently at the books in front of him, one hand gripping the strap of his backpack as the other plays with the sleeve of his bomber jacket. Lucas can just make out a smudge of ink on the boy’s cheek trailing from his ear to his chin, mirroring the pathway of the bright white headphone wires snaking towards his pocket. 

“Are we here?”

Lucas is broken out of his trance by the Orgo girl, her hand shaking his shoulder lightly as she looks around. He takes a step back from her, letting out a breath he didn’t know he held. 

“I, um, I don’t see any science books.”

His gaze flickers over to the boy one last time. Something’s telling him not to leave, not to walk away from his chance. He wants to know what the boy was listening to, wants to find out which books he was considering so carefully. But Orgo girl clears her throat and fuck, Lucas really hates his job sometimes.

“Uh, no, sorry, it’s farther back. Just gotta get through, yeah?” He pauses, shuffling around and trying to move past the group of students in front of them. 

“Oh, okay!” The girl shoots him a bright smile and starts moving forward, almost pushing him through the crowd. Damn, she's bold. Lucas hesitates when they finally get through, wanting to turn back and talk to the boy instead. 

But he keeps going (he always keeps going) and when they get to the science textbooks, Lucas scans the shelves quickly before pulling out three beat-up hardcovers and a sheet of light pink paper. 

“We have used copies of these three, so they’ll be cheaper, but the last one is only available online, so you’ll have to pay for an access code,” he says, handing the girl her books with a tight smile. “Sorry about that.” 

“No, no, it’s fine! It’s,” she hesitates, eyes catching on the price tag at the top of the sheet of paper and face paling considerably. “It’ll be fine.” 

Lucas nods, hand brushing his sides. He knows that look all too well. 

“Is that all you needed or…?” He’s bouncing up on his toes, anxious to get back to the fiction section. (To check stock, of course. Nothing more, nothing less.) 

“No, that’s it!” She flashes a smile, but it’s dimmer this time. “Thank you so much, really!”

“No problem,” Lucas replies, giving her a small wave as he steps away. “Register is back up front, okay?” Orgo girl nods, looking nervously back down at the textbooks in her hands. 

He leaves her to her own devices, too familiar with the shadow that passes over her face every time she shifts the books in her arms. Lucas starts his walk back to the front, speeding up as he goes. It’s busy, there are people everywhere, he doesn’t look too out of place, it’s fine. 

He breaks out of the textbook crowd just in time to see The Boy walk out of an aisle, brush past a group of students, and head towards the exit, pulling his hood up over his head. _Dammit._

Maybe it's for the best, though. Lucas doesn't know what he would've done if The Boy had still been there. Talk to him? No, probably not. Shuffle awkwardly through the neighboring aisles trying to muster up the courage to approach the boy, and then watch him leave as soon as Lucas feels half-ready to talk? Yeah, sounds more like it. 

Lucas lets out a resigned sigh as he watches The Boy push through the double doors. He steps out, turning back to hold one door open for a few students, and looks up. Right at Lucas. 

His breath catches in his throat, his mouth goes dry, the whole nine yards. _Shit, his eyes._ Lucas can’t really tell from so far away whether they’re blue or gray or green but. 

They’re striking. _He’s_ striking. 

Suddenly, Lucas feels a weight being pressed into his chest; the grumpy boy from before (Isaac, Lucas thinks his name tag says) shoves a stack of books into his arms, snapping Lucas out of his reverie. He stumbles backwards a bit, nearly knocking into a student heading towards the shelves.

“Restock,” Maybe-Isaac says, throwing the word over his shoulder as he walks away, as if it's nothing, as if Lucas wasn’t reeling from three seconds of eye contact with someone he _doesn’t even know._

By the time Lucas looks back at the door, The Boy is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!! pls leave a kudos and comment if you so desire ♥♥
> 
> i'm gonna try v hard to update once a week, but i'm in the process of graduating uni, moving to a new apt, and finding a job so wish me luck mecs
> 
> tumblr: [tawmlinsun](https://tawmlinsun.tumblr.com) // [ficpost](https://tawmlinsun.tumblr.com/post/185113470319/you-just-float-through-he-sees-the-boy-on-his)


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> didn't think i'd get the chapter up this quickly, so yay for productive procrastination! 
> 
> thank you to everyone who has left a kudos or comment or messaged me on tumblr!!! y'all have made this week so much brighter and have seriously motivated me to write faster lol ♥
> 
> un-beta'd, all mistakes are mine 
> 
> enjoy :)

Lucas finishes his shift with minimal problems — how he manages to get through it, he isn’t sure, but it probably has something to do with the constant threat of taking over Emma’s spot at the register. Sure, he zones out a bit too often and definitely stutters his way through helping a couple students, but nothing major. He’s fine. He can do this.

(That’s a lie. He can’t do this. He spent the last ten minutes of his shift trying to figure out The Boy’s eye color when he should’ve been unpacking the final box of books.)

“From now on, I’m calling out for the entire first week of classes,” Emma huffs as they finally leave the store. It’s 10pm, two hours after closing, and they’ve just finished cleaning up and reorganizing the shelves.

“Yes, but then you’d have no money,” Imane counters, eyebrows raised. Emma considers it for a moment, lips pursed, as Lucas chuckles beside the girls.

“Fair point. Maybe I’ll just lock myself in the back room, then.”

“Oh, like that’s not what you do now?”

Lucas rolls his eyes, speeding up a bit to shift to the front of their little triangle as the girls bicker behind him. They don’t live too far from the bookstore, only about a 15 minute walk separating the store and their dorm, but he wants to get to his room as soon as possible. If he’s going to keep losing his focus over a boy he doesn’t know, he might as well do it in the peace of his own dorm. Yann wouldn’t be back on campus for another few days anyway.

They cross the main courtyard, careful to dodge the overgrown tree roots and bumps in the grass. The night sky is hazy above them, stars ducking in and out of view as clouds pass by. Imane and Emma’s chatter fades into background noise as Lucas focuses on the crickets chirping around them, the wind rustling the trees, the far off laughter of students returning to the dorms.

Walks home through the courtyard are Lucas’ favorite part of working at the bookstore. There’s always something going on, even at such a late hour, always something to pull his attention and remind him of where he is, that yeah, this is his life now. He breathes deep, letting the night air fill his lungs.

“...right, Lucas?”

He snaps back to the present, whipping around to face the girls. “Huh?”

“Welcome back, Lucas,” Imane teases as Emma giggles beside her. “Nice of you to join us tonight.”

“Oh, shut up,” he mutters, waving them off. “I’m tired and you should be, too.”

“So we have grumpy Lucas tonight, huh?” Emma replies, throwing an arm over his shoulder, which receives another eye roll. “What, did you get a paper cut unpacking all those books? Stub your toe on a shelf?”

“You’re awful, the both of you,” he scoffs, shaking his head. Their dorm building finally comes into view, and Lucas is nothing but grateful. “You know that, right?”

“We pride ourselves on it, in fact.”

Imane comes up beside him, linking their elbows together and shooting him a smile. Lucas lets out a low chuckle, wrapping his free arm around Emma’s waist and pulling them both closer.

Okay, so maybe he loves his friends. They only met a few months ago and Lucas already couldn’t imagine life without them. Even if they were pains in the ass sometimes. 

The rest of their walk passes by quickly, reaching their dorm in a matter of minutes. Once inside, Lucas breaks away from the other two and rushes into the waiting elevator, pressing the button for his floor before the girls can even step in beside him.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he scolds, blocking Emma’s hand from where she’s reaching towards the buttons. “It’s your turn to take the stairs.”

“No, it’s not. We walked last time!”

“New semester means a clean slate.”

“It’s one floor, Emma,” Imane mutters, pressing the button to close the doors. The other girl sighs next to her, falling back against the wall as the elevator begins to rise.

“Fine.”

They reach Lucas’ floor quickly and step out into an empty hallway. He turns to wave to the girls as they head towards the stairwell, off to their own floor just above his.

Lucas unlocks the door to his dorm, breathing in a sigh as he steps through the threshold. He’s met with silence, a stark contrast to the Yann Soundtrack, as he calls it: jangly guitar notes, the sharp sounds of a video game on their tiny television, rough swears spilling out of his best friend’s mouth as he works away at a paper. Lucas hates when the dorm is quiet — he hates the quiet in general, it gives him too much space to think — so he pulls out his phone, playing music at full blast once the door shuts.

He flips the lightswitch, illuminating his mess of a room. He kicks off his shoes, grabbing a pair of sweatpants from his half-unpacked suitcase and snagging some food from their little kitchenette, as they like to call it. (It’s just a microwave on top of a mini fridge, plus a cardboard box full of snacks, but hey, it’s theirs.)

After he’s changed into the sweats, Lucas jumps on his bed and settles in, pulling his blankets onto his lap and opening up his computer. He’s got a bag of popcorn next to him and a bottle of water on his desk: not much, but enough for a solo movie night. He’s just about to press play when there’s a knock on his door.

He freezes, index finger hovering above his mousepad. If he’s completely silent, maybe they’ll go away.

Nope. More knocks.

“Oh, c’mon,” he groans, flinging back his blankets and shuffling over to the door. _Please don’t be Mika, please don’t be Mika…_

“Hi, Lucas!” Oh, thank fuck.

“Hey, Manon,” he replies, opening the door a bit wider to let her in. She’s holding some sort of container in her arms, nearly hidden by the wool of her oversized sweater. “What’s up?”

“Emma just got back from the bookstore, said it was a rough shift so…” She pauses, pushing back her sleeves to reveal a tupperware container filled to the brim with baked goods. “I brought you some treats!”

 _Holy shit._ Lucas thinks he can spot one of Manon’s famous double chocolate muffins towards the back, right next to a few snickerdoodles and croissants. God, it smells so good: chocolate and cinnamon and sugar and vanilla all mixing together like they were meant to be. His mouth is watering already.

“You know you’re my favorite of all the girls, right?” he sputters, still staring at the mountain of treats in her arms. “Because you are. Truly.”

“I’ll be sure to tell Emma that.”

“Oh, please do.”

She chuckles, holding the tupperware out to him. Lucas doesn’t hesitate to grab it and survey his newfound movie night snack. Fuck, are those peanut butter cookies?

He finally looks up, meeting her light eyes. “Thank you, Manon, seriously.” She waves him off, pulling the sleeves of her sweater back down over her palms.

“Don’t mention it. I’m sure I’ll be back in the kitchen soon, anyway, so…” she trails off, gaze shifting down to the ground. Lucas had only known her for a few months, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that she was a stress-baker: she left trays upon trays of cupcakes out in the common room last finals season, a collection rivaled only by her midterms brownie extravaganza.

But classes haven’t even started yet, and by the looks of it, Manon has already baked enough to feed the entirety of both his floor and hers.

“Well,” he begins, “I’m here if you ever need a taste tester.” _Or a friend._ It goes unsaid, but it’s there, and from the weary smile Manon gives him, Lucas knows she heard.

“I, uh, better get back upstairs. Emma’s insisting on a girls’ night before the semester starts.” Lucas nods, stepping aside to let her out of the room. “Share some with the boys, yeah?

“Can’t share if they’re not here,” he counters, drawing his words out into a sort of song. Lucas gives Manon a smirk as she walks away, rolling her eyes before pushing open the stairwell door. It slams behind her and Lucas is left in the silence once more.

Slowly, he retreats into his room, sorting through the baked goods in his arms before picking out what appears to be pain au chocolat. _Perfect._

He crawls back under his covers. They’re new, a Christmas gift from his mother, and he’s careful to not smudge any chocolate on the sheets.

Lucas gets halfway through the movie (and all of the way through another pain au chocolat) before he calls it a night, eyelids growing heavy with sleep.

* * *

 

The next few days come and go, with the bookstore keeping up the pre-semester bustle. Students flood the aisles, new shipments pile up in the inventory room, and Lucas finds himself in the fiction section more often than not. Most times he’s not even sure how he gets there: he’ll be on the floor shift, tasked with restocking sweatshirts or notebooks or whatever, and he’ll take an unintentional detour to the front. Half the time he doesn’t realize where he is until he’s in the last aisle, fingertips running over the store’s Virginia Woolf collection (and fuck, Lucas doesn’t even know if this was what The Boy was _looking at,_ but. Something keeps pulling him here.).

Lucas knows he’s never seen The Boy before. He can zone out at times and be a little oblivious to his surroundings, sure, but he would remember that face, that hair, those _eyes._ Plus, Lucas is only a freshman and The Boy is definitely an upperclassman, a junior at least. Their university is small, but not small enough for him to know everyone in his class, much less the entire school.

With Lucas’ luck, he’ll never run into The Boy again. He doesn’t really know if that’s good or bad.

 

* * *

 

“Thanks again, Lea,” Lucas says, already halfway out of the office. The meeting was just as pointless as he had expected: there’s really not much to talk about on the first day of classes. “I’ll see you in a couple weeks.”

He waves to Lea, his advisor, as he goes, stepping back out into the hallway.

The walls around him are splashed and splattered with every color imaginable, a trademark of the art building: each floor is designed as a tribute to a famous artist, with the art history department dedicated to Jackson Pollock. He’s walked through these halls nearly every other week since he arrived last semester, but the multitude of colors lining each corridor never fails to affect him. There’s a duality to it: anxiety, because yeah, the walls are kind of a mess, but peace, because it’s a mess that makes sense.

(Lucas doesn’t quite know why the university gave a _biology_ major an _art history_ professor as an advisor, but he can’t be mad about it. Not with these walls and the emotions they stir inside him.)

He starts to make his way to the elevators, pulling out his headphones and stuffing them in his ears. Before he can play his music, though, a voice floats towards him. It’s soft and lilting, and Lucas can hear their smile, hear the warmth and comfort they bring to the room.

He knows that voice doesn’t belong to the girl at the front desk, with her purple hair, bulky denim jacket, and layered tees. They’ve had a few conversations, mostly small talk while Lucas waits for Lea to be ready for one of their meetings.

Curious, Lucas takes a tentative step forward, tucking his phone away and glancing up towards the end of the corridor.

_Shit._

He’d know that jacket anywhere. He’s been scanning the bookstore crowds for that particular tawny hue all week.

The Boy is standing by the front desk, talking animatedly with the student receptionist, smiling and leaning on the desk as they speak. His hands are waving through the air with every word and as Lucas gets closer, he spots more ink droplets scattered across The Boy’s knuckles. A snippet of their conversation reaches Lucas’ ears, something about watercolors and paper.

The Boy’s an artist. He _has_ to be.

(It scares Lucas how eager he is to know more about the boy, how he soaks up new information, how carefully he’s paying attention, even from a distance.)

Lucas takes a deep breath, steeling himself, and moves forward.

Art Boy’s voice slows down as Lucas gets closer, like the hallway is flooded with amber, clogging Lucas’ ears and making his head go fuzzy. Colors blur around him. He can feel the pounding in his chest get stronger with every step he takes towards the department lobby.

Lucas leaves the confines of the corridor, entering the open space of the lobby. He keeps walking, passing by the front desk and giving the girl a small smile and wave, trying desperately to keep his eyes on her and not on Art Boy. (He’s only mildly successful, flicking quick glances over to the other boy.)

She sends him a nod in return and as Lucas turns away he feels another set of eyes on him, hears the rustling of a jacket as a person swivels around.

He locks eyes with Art Boy _again_ and his breath catches in his throat and shit, is he about to trip over his own two feet?

They’re closer this time, no bookshelves or frantic students to separate them. He can see Art Boy better, see the sharpness of his cheekbones, the curve of his eyelashes, the dip of his brow.

His hair looks softer up close like this. (Lucas wants to reach out and feel.)

Lucas wills himself to turn away, fighting against the desire to stop and keep Art Boy’s eyes on him for as long as possible. Reluctantly, he moves forward, praying to a god he doesn’t know if he believes in that Art Boy _doesn’t_ notice the way Lucas’ gaze darts to his lips, as if on instinct.

Another few steps and he’s in front of the elevators, but he barely spares them a glance before he’s shoving the stairwell door open. Waiting for the elevator is too tempting: too much time, too open of an opportunity for Art Boy to finish his conversation and come wait with Lucas. He doesn’t know what he would do if that were to happen.

So fuck the fact that he’s on the seventh floor. Stairs it is.

He rushes down the seven flights, bursting into the building lobby and nearly running out the front doors. In a second, he’s back out in the main courtyard with the bright sun burning his eyes. Students rush all around him and Lucas gets jostled by the crowds, standing still in a mess of bodies.

It takes a minute for Lucas to step out of his head, breathing hard and wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans. He darts forward in the direction of the literature building to head towards his next class.

Lucas feels his phone buzz faintly in his pocket, but he doesn’t pull it out until he’s in front of his class’ building. He glances down at the screen to see “Dad” splayed across the top of his notifications. Swiping the message away without even reading it, he pockets his phone and leans back against the wall, running a hand through his dark hair. He’ll deal with that later.

“Lucas!”

He kicks off the wall, meeting Arthur as he walks towards the building entrance and pulling him into a hug. His blonde hair is a little longer, a little curlier around his ears, and it looks like he got new glasses.

“Hey, man! Good break?”

“Yeah, yeah, chilled at home for basically all of it,” Arthur replies. “You did a winter course, right?”

Lucas nods. “Another GenEd out of the way.”

“Nice, man.” Arthur swings his backpack around to pull a sheet of paper from its depths. “Syllabus says the class is on the sixth floor, so we should probably head up now, yeah?”

“If we must,” Lucas sighs, leading the way into the building. They swipe their ID cards at the entrance and head over to the elevators.

“Oh, dude,” Arthur starts as they step through the elevator doors. “I ran into Yann as I was leaving today. Baz got back yesterday, too, so you guys should come over tonight! Beers to start the semester?”

“Sounds great, man,” Lucas replies as they reach the sixth floor. They find the classroom, one of the smaller lecture halls, and quickly slide into seats towards the back. It’s a writing course, a requirement for every undergraduate student at the university, and honestly, Lucas is just happy he has a friend here.

The professor starts going over the syllabus, which is Lucas’ cue to zone out entirely. (Arthur is basically falling asleep next to him, along with half of the other students here.) Lucas lets his mind drift as he picks up his pen and starts to scribble in the margins of his notebook, not really paying attention to what he’s drawing.

There are too many people in the class to do introductions, so when the professor finishes half an hour early, he dismisses everyone without a second thought.

“You done for the day, Lucas?” Arthur asks, pulling on his coat.

“Nah,” Lucas says with a shake of his head. “I have calc later.”

Arthur lets out an “oof” of sympathy, pressing a hand to his chest. “Good luck, bro. Listen, I gotta get to my next class, but I’ll see you tonight!” He rushes out the door with the rest of their classmates, leaving a chuckling Lucas in his wake.

Lucas starts to get his things together. He’s about to shut his notebook when he does a double take at his margin drawings: blue circles, and loads of them, of all different sizes and overlapping every which way.

Makes sense. Art Boy’s eyes are blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!! pls drop a kudos/comment if you wanna ♥
> 
> psa that the next chapter will take some time!! i have a lot planned for that one and this week is finals, graduation, and moving week so i'm gonna be v busy
> 
> tumblr: [tawmlinsun](https://tawmlinsun.tumblr.com) // [ficpost](https://tawmlinsun.tumblr.com/post/185138337156/you-just-float-through-he-sees-the-boy-on-his)


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ur girl graduated!!! and is nearly all moved in!!! wow!!!! 
> 
> ANYWAY thank you all for your patience as i got this chapter ready!!! it's been a v big and v busy two weeks for me but i'm so so excited to finally publish this for y'all 
> 
> (also thank you for all the love on 'step right up' as well!!!)
> 
> (also also happy pride month everyone!!!!)
> 
> un-beta'd, all mistakes are mine 
> 
> hope you enjoyyyyy ♥

After his calculus class that evening, Lucas takes the long way back to his dorm. He weaves through campus, passing academic buildings and dining halls, crossing the quad. Despite the cold January weather, students are spread across the lawn, everyone chatting with friends and catching up on each other’s winter breaks. He sees a few familiar faces, waving to them as he passes but it’s not enough to stop him, and he breezes through the courtyard, past the upperclassman dorms, and into his building.

He swipes his student ID at the gate, jumping into an already-packed elevator. They stop on nearly every floor on the way up; at this rate, it would’ve been faster if Lucas had _walked_ up the nine flights of stairs.

When they finally reach his floor, Lucas steps out of the elevator, pulling out his keys as he makes his way over to his door. He pauses just before turning the lock and the quiet strums of a guitar seep into the hallway. _Finally._

“Honey, I’m home!” Lucas calls as he steps through the door. The melody jolts to a stop and Yann sticks his head out into their little entryway.

“Welcome back, dude!” Yann rushes over and pulls him into a hug, giving Lucas a few claps on the back.

“I’ve _been_ here,” Lucas begins, stepping back. “You’re the one who went home for the entire break.” Yann snorts, brushing a fist against Lucas’ shoulder. “And I _did_ come home to visit you,” he continues. “Multiple times.”

“Only for the weekends, bro,” he says. “Doesn’t really count.” Lucas rolls his eyes, giving Yann one last punch on the shoulder before heading over his bed and throwing his backpack on the floor.

“Give me five minutes and then we can go get dinner and catch up, okay?” he suggests, pulling his calculus textbook out of his bag and putting it on his desk. “I mean, I saw you last week so I don’t think much has changed, but we can still go.”

Yann barks out a laugh, taking his wallet off of his own desk and stuffing it in his pocket. “Can’t a guy just want to hang out with his best friend?”

Lucas rolls his eyes, fond, and grabs his wallet from his bag. “Let’s go eat, you big sap,” he mutters, pushing Yann out the door.

 

* * *

 

After dinner (which, yeah, they actually _did_ have quite a bit to catch up on), Yann and Lucas return to their dorm, greeted by a shout from down the hall that is unmistakably Basile.

“I’d say he’s two beers in?” Yann considers, already heading over to Basile and Arthur’s room.

“Nah.” Lucas shakes his head, knocking on their door. “He’s completely sober.”

“Boys!” Arthur shouts as he opens the door, welcoming both of them in with a hug. Basile cheers from his spot on the couch, but Lucas can’t quite tell whether he’s responding to their arrival or to the video game he’s playing. (He’s betting on the latter.)

“Perfect timing: we were just about to open these up,” Arthur says, hoisting two six-packs of beer up on his hip. Lucas nudges Yann’s shoulder with a quick _I told you so_ eyebrow raise, grabbing a bottle from Arthur and plopping down on Basile’s bed.

The four quickly pick up right where they left off in December: moaning about classes, teasing Basile about his latest romantic endeavor, nursing mediocre beers as a form of procrastination.

Three hours later, they’re all on the right side of tipsy: Lucas is actually laughing at Basile’s shitty jokes and Arthur is draped over Yann as they battle each other on screen, but no one’s waking up with a hangover tomorrow. Or at least they _shouldn’t._

There’s a knock on the door, and a loud one at that, though Lucas thinks the world got a little amplified a beer and a half ago. He ambles over to the door, pulling it open with a swoop.

“Alexia!”

There’s a chorus of cheers from behind him, albeit a messy chorus, and he throws his arms around his friend.

“Welcome back, Lex!” Basile yells from the couch, and the blue-haired girl rolls her eyes as she and Lucas pull away.

“I told you not to call me that,” Alexia deapans, leaning on the doorframe. Baz waves her off, choosing instead to focus on the game (where he’s losing against Yann, of course, but not as terribly as Lucas had lost twenty minutes ago).

“What can we do for you, Lex?” Arthur asks as he comes to the door, beckoning her inside.

“You realize it’s a Monday, right? And that we have classes tomorrow?”

“And?”

She snorts, brushing a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “We’re right above you. We can _feel_ you guys yelling at your tv through the floor.”

“Oh shit, are we that loud?” Lucas bursts out laughing at Arthur’s expression, genuinely surprised at their apparent volume.

“Yes, you idiots,” Alexia groans, rolling her eyes. “Be thankful I came down and not Daphné, because you know she would’ve chewed you out.” Lucas shudders; he’s dreading the day he’ll finally find himself on the receiving end of one of Daphné’s lectures. The girl doesn’t mess around.

“We’ll keep it down, Alexia,” Yann calls, voice lighter after beating Basile yet again.

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” she mutters, giving Arthur a quick fist bump on her way out the door.

“Sorry, Alexia!” Lucas calls after her retreating figure.

“Yeah, sure,” she answers, waving him off as she backs away and pushes open the stairwell door. She lets it slam behind her, and Lucas and Arthur shake with quiet, tispy laughter as they retreat into the room and rejoin Yann and Basile in front of the tv.

“We should probably take that as our cue to call it a night…” Yann says, already getting up from his spot on Arthur’s bed. Lucas reluctantly nods, giving Arthur and Basile claps on the back as he moves to join Yann.

“We’ll figure out something for this weekend?” he asks, eyes darting between his friends.

“I’ll find us a party,” Arthur replies.

“And I’ll find us weed!”

“Baz, you _know_ your stuff is always shit, why would you even —”

Arthur’s scolding is drowned out by Lucas and Yann’s roars of laughter as the two stumble out the door and down the hall, back to their room.

 

* * *

 

Thankfully, Lucas doesn’t wake up with a hangover the next day (and neither do the rest of the boys), because he’s back on his normal work schedule for the rest of the week. The rare Monday off was only awarded to him so that he could settle into his new classes, but he’s immediately thrown back into the swing of things. Wednesday brings Lucas his favorite shift: he works with both Imane _and_ Emma, his favorite manager is on lead, and the mid-week crowd is usually pretty light.

He gets out of his calculus class and goes directly to the bookstore, trying to clock in as early as possible just to earn a few extra dollars.

Lucas walks into the store, ready for a chill shift. What he forgets, though, is that, normal work schedule or not, it’s still the first week of class, and students are still buying their textbooks.

It’s less frantic than last week, of course, but he nearly gets run over within thirty seconds of entering the shop. (A new record, Lucas thinks.)

After clocking in, he spends the first two hours of his shift at the dreaded register. It's a constant stream of: no, the discount is only for alumni; yes, you have thirty days to return that shirt; no, I will not sell you this new textbook for the used price, no matter how much you try to flirt with me. He knows the script by now (and he knows exactly when Emma will butt in: “Come back in a few years.” “But not if it’s completely destroyed.” “You’re not really his type.”).

As soon as the clock on his computer hits 7pm, Lucas is pushing away from the desk and heading to the break room, telling the first employee he sees to cover his spot at the register while he eats his dinner: mediocre take-out from the nearest dining hall.

He scarfs down the sandwich he brought and is polishing off a bag of chips when his manager, Nico walks in.

“All good, Lucas?” he asks, raven hair flopping around as he pulls a water bottle from their mini fridge. Lucas nods in return, ripping open a candy bar.

“Listen, can you just do a round or two of the floor and then open up another register?” Nico asks. “Closing is in two hours and I want to start clearing them out early.”

“Yeah, of course,” Lucas replies. He gives Nico a fist bump and throws the wrapper of his candy bar into the trash on his way out the door. _Break officially over._

Out on the floor, he wanders the aisles, lingering in the less crowded ones and speeding through the packed stacks. It’s still busy, of course, being the first week of classes and all, but there’s a little more space in the store today.

Lucas turns the corner into their humanities section and stops short, sneakers squeaking on the wooden floor. Eyes wide, he whips around to face the nearest shelf, heart pounding in his chest.

Art Boy is back.

Lucas shuffles about at the end of the aisle, pulling out books at random, making at least some semblance of an attempt at checking stock and pricing.

It’s no use. He keeps looking at Art Boy out of the corner of his eye.

His hair is messier than the last two times Lucas has seen him, but he’s still wearing that same jacket and hoodie combo, with the same headphone wires peeking out of the dark fabric of his sweatshirt. He’s got a folded piece of paper held out in front of him, his blue-grey eyes darting between the sheet and the shelves quickly, completely absorbed.

A minute passes and Art Boy is still there, but now he’s shifting his weight between his feet, searching the surrounding shelves for whatever book he needs. Lucas’ feet are cemented to the floor but he’s itching to move, itching to take those five steps to his left.

Another glance. Art Boy’s brow is furrowed and he’s backing away from the shelf slowly. Lucas feels his feet move before his brain can catch up.

Fuck, is he about to do this? _Fuck, he’s about to do this._

“Can I help you with anything?”

Art Boy nearly jumps out of his skin, ripping one of his headphones out from underneath his hood as he snaps around to Lucas.

“Shit, sorry!” Lucas rushes, taking a step back. He’s really fucked it up now, huh? _Great first impression._ “I didn’t mean to, uh, I’ll just —”

“No, you’re fine,” Art Boy says with a light laugh, pausing his music and taking his other headphone out. He shoves the cord into his pocket as he finally _(finally)_ turns to fully look at Lucas. “I actually need your help.”

And. Well. Lucas didn’t expect _that._

A shake of the head and a dismissive little wave would’ve been fine. It’s what he gets from basically everyone else anyway. Lucas would’ve been alright with that being his only interaction with Art Boy. (At the very least, it would save him from the heart attack he is almost certainly having now.)

“You do?” he asks, brows high, and Lucas feels himself take a step back in surprise.

“I do.” The beginnings of a smile make their way across Art Boy’s lips, teasing yet soft.

“What, uh, what can I do for you then?” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, just to have something to do with them, and rocks back on his heels. _God, Lucas, calm the fuck down._

“I need this book for my French Cinema class.” Ah, so he _is_ artsy. “But it’s not on the shelf…” Art Boy trails off, and he gestures towards the bookshelf behind him but his eyes never leave Lucas. He pulls the edge of his bottom lip between his teeth and _okay,_ Lucas’ knees might be buckling a bit.

“Can I see, um…?” Lucas holds his hand out to Art Boy, reaching for his syllabus.

“Yeah, of course,” he replies, placing it in Lucas’ open palm. “It’s the first one on the list.”

Lucas unfolds the paper, smoothing it out and scanning the class description at the top. He hums, a little noise of disapproval.

“What?” Art Boy steps closer, leaning in to get a closer look at the paper.

“Beaumont,” Lucas scoffs, referring to the professor. “He submitted his syllabus late. We barely ordered the books in time.” Since he was one of the few student employees who had stayed on over winter break, he had been tasked with ordering spring textbooks. It had taken nearly fifteen (daily at the start but hourly towards the end) email reminders from Lucas for Beaumont to finally submit his syllabus.

“Shit.” Art Boy lets out a low, frustrated sigh, shifting back onto his heels and drawing a thumb to the edge of his mouth, biting the nail there.

Lucas hesitates, scanning Art Boy’s defeated, resigned expression. He wants (to kiss) that frown off his face.

“We, uh, we actually got a new shipment in this morning,” Lucas begins, gaze darting across Art Boy’s shadowed features. “The books aren’t supposed to be out until tomorrow, but I could pull yours early if it’s back there.”

Art Boy’s head snaps up, stormy eyes meeting Lucas’ in an instant. “Fuck, really? You’d do that for me?”

“Y-Yeah, of course,” Lucas falters, struck by the intensity of the other boy’s stare. “Just give me a minute, okay?”

“I’ll be here.” His words are a little softer this time, and Lucas can barely register the change in tone before he’s darting off to the back room, Art Boy’s syllabus wrinkling in his palm. (No, he’s not running, definitely not. Just speedwalking.)

He bursts through the door to find the room blessedly empty, quickly locating the unopened stack of boxes in the far corner. Lucas scans each packing list and thankfully finds what he’s looking for.

_Get the book, get back out there. Get the book, get back out there._

He pulls the textbook out of the box, a thin paperback decorated with the colors of the French flag, and rips the plastic wrap off with a crunch. He takes a quick glance over the syllabus to confirm he has the right book and he’s running over to the computer at the edge of the room. Lucas scans the book quickly, registering it into their system and entering the proper pricing. Once the single copy is marked as in stock, he rushes back out to the floor.

Lucas can feel his heart beating in his fingers, his stomach, his throat. He comes to a stop a couple aisles early, walking up to a random shelf under the guise of checking pricing. Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath, releasing the tension from his shoulders. _It’s not a big deal. Just a guy._ Stepping out from the aisle, he forces himself to walk slower, keep his head up, stop toying with the book in his hands. Lucas turns the corner and —

He’s right where Lucas left him, looking expectantly at the end of the aisle, like he’s waiting for _Lucas_ and not for his book.

“Here you go,” Lucas says, holding the book out to Art Boy.

“Thank you,” Art Boy starts, eyes flicking to the name tag on Lucas’ chest. “Lucas.”

His name is said softly, the last syllable trailing off of Art Boy’s pink lips, and Lucas’ brain short-circuits.

“You’re welcome, um…?”

“Eliott. I’m Eliott.”

A hand shoots out in front of him and there’s a swipe of vibrant purple along the palm and when Lucas shakes Art Boy’s (wait, fuck, _Eliott’s_ ) hand, he swears he hears Eliott gasp as their fingers touch.

“Nice to meet you, Eliott.” He says it slowly, testing the name on his lips, teeth, tongue.

“You too, Lucas.”

He’s desperately hoping his hands aren’t sweating, that he’s not staring as much as he thinks he is, that Eliott isn’t weirded out by some freshman in a bookstore who’s shaking his hand for far too long.

They break apart, eyes connected, and Lucas clears his throat.

There’s a silence and it’s...it’s awkward. This is where their interaction should end, by all accounts. Customer needs help, sales guy helps customer, customer leaves: it’s a standard social transaction.

But Lucas wants to linger. Fuck, does he want to linger.

And Eliott probably has dinner plans, is probably just running a quick errand before meeting up with friends and Lucas is just wasting Eliott’s time.

He’s still standing there, though, smiling down at Lucas, and Lucas hopes he wants to linger, too.

“Is there, uh,” Lucas stutters, shifting under the weight of Eliott’s intent gaze. “Is there anything else you needed?”

“What?” Eliott snaps to attention, straightening up to his full height ( _fuck, how is he that tall?_ ). “No, no, that’s it. Thank you, Lucas.”

Lucas grins at the sound of his name once more, looking up at Eliott through his eyelashes as the taller boy steps away. Before he can walk off to the register, though, Lucas calls out Eliott’s name and the boy is twisting back around to face him, eyes wide and eager.

“Good luck with Beaumont.”

Eliott chuckles, low and melodic. “Thank you, Lucas,” he murmurs. “See you around.”

And it’s not a promise, definitely not, but Lucas can’t shut down the hope that blooms in his chest.

As soon as Eliott turns the corner, Lucas crumbles, slamming his back against the nearest shelf and pushing every last trace of air out of his lungs in a sigh.

They talked and Lucas didn’t spontaneously combust (which, in his humble opinion, counts as a massive victory). And anyway, he probably wouldn’t be seeing Eliott much for the rest of the semester, save for another chance meeting in the art history department. He has the book he needs, so why would he come back? (Lucas ignores the nagging voice in the back of his mind yelling that there were more books on that syllabus, more chances for Eliott to come into the bookstore.)

Despite himself, there’s a smile on Lucas’ face as he kicks off the bookshelf, taking one last round through the floor and trying his best _not_ to think of the look on Eliott’s face when Lucas brought him the textbook (bright and excited, eyes shining like Lucas had just given him the best birthday present he’d ever received).

“What are you smiling at?” Imane asks as Lucas takes up the open register spot next to her.

“Nothing,” he replies quickly, pressing his lips together and snapping forward. He can feel Imane’s curious gaze burning into the side of his face but he ignores her, jumping at the chance to help the next customer in line.

He makes it through the final hour or so of his shift without any questions from the girl beside him, but Emma keeps shooting him weird looks whenever she brings someone up to the register. Imane must’ve mentioned something to her, though Lucas couldn’t quite imagine what. (He likes to think he can keep his emotions at least _somewhat_ off his sleeve.)

When Lucas clocks out later that night he feels his phone buzz. There’s a text from his mother splashed across the screen, and it’s a bible passage and it’s lengthy and and his heart stops but then another message comes in:

_I hope your first week of classes is going well. I love you, my son. I’m so proud of you._

Lucas exhales slowly. A small grin works its way across his face and he types out a quick reply:

_Thanks, mom. I love you, too. I’ll see you next weekend. ❤_

Monday’s text from his father still sits unread in his inbox, and he hesitates, thumb poised to press down and open the message. _Fuck it_ , he thinks, and clicks on the text.

_I’m moving to a new apartment next month. You have three weeks to come clear out_ _your and your mother’s junk before I throw it all out._

Lucas locks his phone with a huff, jaw clenched tightly. Fine. At least he got a bit of warning.

He pockets the device, leaving through the employee exit and heading out into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading and pls don't be afraid to drop a comment or a kudos!! they make me v happy ♥
> 
> tumblr: [tawmlinsun](https://tawmlinsun.tumblr.com) // [ficpost](https://tawmlinsun.tumblr.com/post/185301342194/you-just-float-through-he-sees-the-boy-on-his)


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY SEASON 5 EVERYONE!!!
> 
> i didn't expect renewal news _this soon_ but!!! i am so so happy rn!!! arthur for s5, folks!!! 
> 
> so here's a chapter to celebrate :) 
> 
> and, of course, thank you for all the kudos/comments. they mean the world to me and keep me motivated ♥♥ 
> 
> un-beta'd, all mistakes are mine
> 
> hope y'all love this monster of a chapter as much as i do

Arthur doesn’t find them a party that weekend.

What he does find, though, is Daphné and Emma smuggling cases of hard cider into their building. Arthur scores him and the boys an invite to whatever the girls are planning in exchange for keeping his mouth shut about the encounter.

But before Lucas can join them he has to pay his father a visit. (Not exactly how he wanted to spend the first Saturday of the semester, but it’s a necessary evil.)

_Be there in an hour._

Lucas hops on his university’s morning shuttle into the city, and from there he takes the train out to his little suburb and walks the three blocks from the station to his childhood home.

When he arrives, the house is silent. But there’s a pile of dirty breakfast dishes in the sink and a chair is pulled away from the kitchen table and Lucas knows, he _knows,_ that his father fled the place as soon as he had received Lucas’ text. (A part of him is delighted. A part of him is disappointed. Lucas doesn’t know which one is winning.)

The last time he was here was last fall, the night before he and Yann moved into their dorm. It had been just him and his father that summer, when silence settled between them and texting became their preferred method of communication, if it could even be called that. Most of Lucas’ days were spent with his mother, helping her get settled into her new clinic, and most of his nights were spent with Yann, whether at a party or at his house.

Coming back is disconcerting. He walks through each room on unsteady feet, like the earth has been tilted on his axis, like he _doesn’t_ know every dip and curve of the floor beneath him like the back of his hand. There’s more air now, more space to exist, Lucas thinks, but he’s also suffocating with every step. It’s a house that’s nowhere near a home.

Living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom.

All he sees are bad memories coming back to him in flashes:

_Screams echoing off the walls. The smash of a glass against the tile floor. His mother crying over her Bible at the kitchen table, Lucas sitting silently beside her, clutching her hand in a death grip as the front door slams behind his father. The cycle repeating for sixteen fucking years, right up to her first stay in a clinic two cities over._

Lucas keeps his head down and walks up to the second floor, taking the stairs two at a time. His old bedroom is the first on the left and the door gets stuck when he tries to push it open, wary of visitors after months of stillness. When Lucas does shove his way through, he finds it exactly as he left it all those months ago: band posters lining the pale walls, his beaten-up skateboard peeking out from underneath his bed, crumpled sheet music cluttering his desk. It’s sparse, especially after moving most of his belongings to his dorm, but it still feels like him in a house that so clearly doesn’t. Lucas welcomes the familiarity of it all.

He starts with his dresser, throwing some clothes into the suitcase he had brought with him and tossing anything that no longer fits him into a donate pile by his door. Then he turns to the rest of the room, surveying how pieces of himself are scattered around the space, and gets to work.

His closet is home to board games, stacks of books, and baskets full of old toys he hasn’t touched in years. With a sigh, Lucas begins packing his childhood away in cardboard boxes destined for the children’s hospital by his mother’s clinic. (The rediscovery of some of his favorite toys may or may not have delayed the process, but really, no one has to know.) Everything that’s beyond saving gets dumped in the trash bins downstairs for his father to dispose of later.

When his bedroom is stripped down to its bones (and fuck, he can barely look at the room when it’s like this, so void of life and emotion after 18 years of _LucasLucasLucas_ ), he moves onto his parents’ room.

It’s completely his father’s now, barely any trace of his mother left inside. Her clinic, although much better than the last, doesn’t offer much in the way of storage. Lucas had already stuffed her shelves and closet with as many of her things as possible when he had moved her in last spring, just a week after his graduation.

He drags a second suitcase into the room and fills it with everything he can find, from rogue pieces of clothing and photographs of him and his mother, to a candle he knows she loves and the CDs they used to listen to in the car. He’s nearly done, scanning the area for anything he missed, when he spots two cardboard boxes shoved in the back of the walk-in closet. He pulls them out into the center of the room, noting the little “L” written on the top of each.

Lucas opens the first one up carefully and finds the past 18 years of his life staring back at him.

He spots faded photos of him and Yann in elementary school, arms littered with Band-Aids from playground injuries. There’s the corner of his middle school yearbook, he thinks, and a performance program from his short-lived church choir career. Amusement park tickets from early family vacations, old school projects, a Mother’s Day card he made in middle school: it’s all here, perfectly preserved.

This isn’t his father’s doing.

The second box holds the bigger items: it’s mainly photo albums, but a couple of his piano competition trophies poke through to the top. Lucas lifts the biggest book out of the box, laying it out in front of him and opening it up to a random page.

He reads the inscription at the top, tracing his fingertips over the indents left by his mother’s careful handwriting: _Lucas’ 2nd birthday party, 2002. The rascal ended up wearing more cake than he ate._

Below are rows of photos of Lucas as a toddler, hair wild and clothes stained with bright blue frosting. There’s one of him standing at the center of a bright plastic kiddie pool, another of him blowing out the candles of a birthday cake, a third showing him cradling a pink water balloon, and one where he’s barely visible, buried underneath a mountain of gift wrap he’d torn off of his presents.

Right at the heart of the page is a photograph of a little Lucas perched in his mother’s lap, and she’s smiling down at him with those kind, wide eyes he’s always found so comforting, and he’s staring back at her with a grin to match.  

He turns the page to flip through the rest of his life, and Lucas watches himself grow up through his mother’s eyes. There are blank spots, time jumps that align with his mother’s worst periods, when she would stare through Lucas when he talked to her and respond only in Bible passages she quoted from memory. He struggles to remember those times, when his own mind was just as grey and cloudy as his mother’s and his father took every opportunity to be alone and out of the house. But looking through this book, seeing how even the smallest details of his life have been so carefully catalogued, leaves Lucas speechless. His mother’s love, fierce and unwavering, washes over him and knocks him off his feet.

He spent a long time being a bad son, doing her wrong, distancing himself from her as best he could. But fuck, that's _over_ now.

There’s a tear falling down his cheek before he realizes it, then another, then three more, and Lucas slams the photo album shut with a thud.

 _Now isn't the time_ , he thinks, swiping at his cheeks. His father could come back at any moment and it would be great, just great, if he caught Lucas crying on the bedroom floor while surrounded by his childhood relics.

Lucas leans back, lying down on the worn carpet. He can't keep any of this stuff in his dorm; there just isn't enough room, especially not with everything else he’s bringing back today.

But Lucas doesn’t know what his father is planning on carrying with him to his new apartment or what he’s going to toss as soon as Lucas gets out of there. He probably didn’t even know these boxes were in the closet in the first place: they were pushed so far back in there and from what Lucas could tell, only hold memories up to his high school graduation, when his mother had last stayed the night at home during a rare weekend outside of the clinic.

Lucas doesn’t trust his father to hold onto their family’s past, not after the last few years of running from their present.

He carefully places the photo album back in the box, sliding it into its original spot, and closes both boxes up. Lucas brings them downstairs and puts them with the rest of the boxes by the door for him to bring back to his dorm. He'll get new boxes, sturdier ones that will survive the years, and give everything back to his mother another day. On his way upstairs to grab his suitcases, his phone buzzes in his pocket.

**Yann**

_we’re a block away_

_please don’t make us stand out in the cold_

Lucas lets out a breathy laugh, staring down at his screen and shaking his head. He had barely even mentioned his trip home to Yann, only letting the detail slip last night as he moaned about setting an alarm on a Saturday. He should’ve known his best friend would pull something like this.

He brings the suitcases downstairs, rolling them to the front door just in time to hear the thunder of winter boots stomping up the front steps. Lucas opens the door to reveal Yann, Arthur, and Basile standing in the entryway, noses tinged pink from the cold and hands stuffed in coat pockets.

“We’re here to help!” Basile announces, and Lucas chuckles, stepping aside to let them in.

The three boys come barreling through the threshold, two pizza boxes cradled in Yann’s arms. Lucas takes them from him, leading the boys over to the dining area as they shed their winter layers.

“So this is where you lived, huh?” asks Arthur, spinning in a slow circle to survey the place. There are blank spaces on the walls where photos and paintings used to live, dents in the rug where furniture left its mark. Lucas doesn’t really want to know what Arthur finds in the emptiness.

“Man, I haven’t been here in _ages_ ,” Yann mutters. “Feels different.”

Lucas clears his throat, taking four glasses out of the cabinet and pouring out drinks for him and the guys. “Yeah, he’s starting to pack up,” he mumbles.

They take their glasses one by one and crack open the pizza boxes. They brought Lucas’ favorite: sausage and peppers with extra cheese. He sends Yann a grateful smile before digging in, already preparing to fight for the final piece. But the battle never ensues and Lucas slips the last slice onto his plate with ease, the boys all conveniently looking the other way as he does. (It’s just a little gesture, but it’s big at the same time, and fuck, Lucas is grateful for these idiots.)

“Well,” he starts, already reaching across the table to clean up their lunch. “I have four boxes and two suitcases, so take your pick.”

“I call suitcases!” Basile yells, darting out of his chair and tripping over his feet on the way to the front door.

“You absolute _disaster_ ,” Arthur mutters, shaking his head at Basile and going to help Lucas wash their dishes instead. “It’s a miracle he hasn’t broken a bone yet, I swear.” Lucas chuckles, wiping down the last of the plates and handing them off to Arthur to dry. He can hear Yann and Basile arguing over the boxes by the door, Yann no doubt winning, and he rolls his eyes.

They work in an easy silence, the running water and distant quarrel enough to fill the space.

As they finish, Arthur’s phone lets out a beep and he digs into his pocket to retrieve it. “Ah, shit,” he begins, shaking his head. “The girls moved their thing to next Friday. Manon has to go home for the weekend and Daphné refuses to have it without her.”  

Lucas shrugs, making a mental note to text Manon about her trip home later. “Beers in your room again?”

“Beers in my room again,” Arthur sighs, sliding the last dish into the cupboard and throwing the towel onto the counter.

Lucas leads the way over to the front door, where Basile waits with two boxes stacked in his arms, a frown painted across his face.

“Arthur, you take this box,” Yann says as he pulls the final box into his arms. “And Lucas can take the suitcases.” _Fine by him._

Lucas leads the boys out the door, locking it behind him without a second glance. He has what he needs from this place; no reason for him to linger any longer.

* * *

 

The rest of the weekend is uneventful, the week is even _more_ uneventful, and before he knows it, it’s Friday afternoon, Lucas and Imane are working at the bookstore after their bio lab, and Lucas is bored as shit.

There’s no one in the store, save for a family shuffling through the school merchandise, clearly fresh off their campus tour and ready to enroll. Imane is hovering by them, reorganizing the shelves of sweaters and waiting for the future student to inevitably ask for her help in picking something from their selection. Tonight’s manager has long since retreated to the back room with a claim that “it’s time to track sales” and that “the inventory calls!” Another employee is in the inventory room, Lucas thinks, and there might be another roaming the floor but he’s not sure.

It’s quiet and empty and Lucas hates it.

He sighs, alone at the register, and glances down to the backpack by his feet. He could stand to do some homework, get ahead on his calculus problem set or the lab report he and Imane started today, but. It’s Friday and it’s only the second week of the semester. No homework for him.

That still leaves Lucas at a loss. He scans the area, debating opening up Netflix on his phone, when he spots their scrap paper bin beneath the counter.

_Now there’s an idea._

He opens up one of the desk drawers and grabs every marker, highlighter, and pen he can find. (Not the blue ones, though. Blue circles have been popping up in the margins of his notebooks all fucking week without him even realizing it. Lucas went out and bought red and black pens to combat it, took all but _one_ blue pen out of his bag, but nope. He keeps reaching for the blue ink.) Then he digs into the scrap paper bin, pulling out sheets of all different sizes and colors, old receipts, and extra inventory lists.

He grabs a stapler and he gets to work.

To be fair, Lucas doesn’t quite know what he’s doing when it comes to art. The extent of his artistic experience stops at the required studio art class he took in high school and the random tidbits of information he picks up during his advisor meetings in the art building. But if there’s anything that damn Jackson Pollock wall taught him, it’s to go with what he’s feeling.

So Lucas does. He scribbles on the scrap paper like he’s five-years-old again, drawing lines and squiggles and not-quite-right shapes, one on top of another. Colors blend across the page and papers get ripped up and stapled back together, changing the design and molding it into something new.

He’s mostly just fucking around, too bored and too tired to do anything of real substance, but he’s having fun. It’s colors and shapes and it’s _bright_ and —

“New art project?”

Lucas nearly jumps out of his fucking skin, markers flying across the counter as his hand shoots out from where he was drawing a particularly detailed flower, thank you very much. There’s a stripe of neon pink slashed across the page now, and Lucas’ cheeks burn with embarrassment.

They burn brighter when he whips his head up and sees Eliott standing in front of him, a smile on his lips and the last traces of his laugh echoing through the bookstore.

He’s still in that damn bomber jacket and hoodie combination, backpack slung haphazardly over his shoulder. Eliott’s hair is a little extra fluffy and airy today, and it’s sticking up like he’s been running his hands (please be _his_ hands) through it for hours.

Lucas coughs, stuttering out some form of a greeting as he works frantically to swipe away the evidence of his artwork. But Eliott is too quick, long fingers skimming along the counter to pull one of the papers closer to him, surveying the mess Lucas had created.

“Quite abstract, huh?” he asks with a smirk, and Lucas flounders. “I’m guessing it’s a slow day,” Eliott continues as he looks around the empty store.

“Yeah, you could say that.” Lucas gulps, eyes darting from Eliott’s face to the paper the boy is holding in his hands and back down to Lucas’ own art project. “So, uh, what can I do for you?”

“Well,” Eliott starts, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. He looks at Lucas with stormy eyes and Lucas bites the inside of his lip. “I need another book for one of my classes and I was hoping you could help me find it.” His words come with a crooked smile, one corner of Eliott’s _pinkpink_ mouth lifting just slightly higher than the other, his eyebrows high and hopeful.

“Y-yeah. Yeah, of course!” Lucas springs into action, shoving his half-finished art project in one of the desk drawers and sweeping his arm across the counter to catch the scattered markers and pens. He rushes out from behind the register, not caring that he’s leaving the station completely empty, and meets Eliott where he stands.

“Still for Beaumont’s class?” Lucas asks. His blush has barely faded but there’s another threatening to spread across his cheeks, mind flashing back to last Wednesday and his dive into the bookstore’s database. Finding Beaumont’s syllabus was easy (as was _Eliott_ _Demaury_ , the name three down from the top of the class roster, just waiting for Lucas’ careful eyes). There are two more required books, two more chances for Lucas to talk to Eliott as he searches the shelves. But that’s just for this class.

“Nah, it’s for this media theory seminar I’m taking,” Eliott responds with a shrug. _Art Boy does media theory now?_ “Analyzing different gazes and techniques and all that. Helpful for film, but it’s a shit ton of reading. I need this anthology book for it.”

Lucas has absolutely no idea what Eliott means, but he can sure as hell find this book. He reaches out for the syllabus, unfolding the paper as Eliott passes it to him. “So, you’re a film major, then?” he asks, leading Eliott over to the proper section of the store.

“Yeah,” he replies, and Lucas can _hear_ the smile in his voice. It puts him at ease, calms the frantic energy that was surging through his veins just a minute earlier.

“Future director? Or producer? No, I got it.” He pauses, stopping in his tracks and turning back to look at Eliott. “You’re gonna be the guy who holds the boom mic.”

Eliott laughs, sharp and bright, and the sound reverberates off of the shelves surrounding them, coming back to Lucas from every direction. It sends a shiver down the boy’s spine.

“What?” he exclaims, barely holding in his own laughter. “You have the height for it!”

“Your confidence in my abilities is astounding, Lucas,” Eliott says, little giggles breaking up his words. “Thank you _so much_ for your support, truly.”

Lucas cracks underneath the sheer mirth in Eliott’s eyes, and he has to turn away, pressing his cheek to his shoulder in a weak attempt to muffle a snort. But if the answering peal of laughter is anything to go by, Lucas knows Eliott heard.

It’s the two of them, laughing alone in the middle of a basically-empty bookstore, and Lucas _should_ feel some sort of embarrassment but nothing’s coming to him.

“What, uh,” he begins, shuffling just a bit closer to Eliott as the last chuckles shake his shoulders. “What do you actually want to do?”

Eliott considers this, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, eyes darting down to the floor and back up again.

“I just want to tell stories. As many as I can, in whatever way possible,” he says, and it’s so raw, so sincere, that Lucas feels his heart clench in his chest.

“Tell me a story, then.” Lucas knows his voice is a little softer now but, fuck, he doesn’t really care.

Eliott furrows his brow, glancing around the store. “Now?”

“Now.”

A huff. A shrug.

“I’m not great on the spot like this,” he trails off, features screwed together. Lucas can only nod, gesturing for the other boy to go ahead, and he leans back against the shelf behind him. Eliott takes a deep breath and begins.

“Once upon a time —”

Lucas cuts him off with _another_ snort. “Seriously, Eliott?”

“Hey, you asked for a story,” Eliott teases. The eye roll he gets in response draws another laugh out of him, and Lucas counts it as a victory. A second deep breath and he restarts.

“Once upon a time, there was a prince named Lucas, and his castle was full of books. Prince Lucas kept his massive library under lock and key; he was very protective of the knowledge stowed away there, and he didn’t want anyone finding out his books’ secrets.”

Lucas stands up a little straighter, if only to get a better view of the gleam in Eliott’s blue-grey eyes, or of the smile that takes over his face as he dives deeper into his tale.

“The prince always had the key to the library with him, but one day, when he was walking through his kingdom, the key fell out of his pocket and into the hands of a commoner. His name was Eliott.” And he winks, _winks,_ at Lucas.

“Eliott had heard of the prince’s library and knew the importance of this key. He knew he should get it back to the prince. But he also knew that the prince’s security was pretty shitty so that night, Eliott snuck into the castle and went to the library. He read until morning, flipping through book after book until the sun came up. As he was sneaking out to go back home, though, the prince caught him.”

Lucas sucks in a gasp, completely entranced.

“Prince Lucas was angry at first, but Eliott said that he just wanted to read and learn, not steal any of the books or their knowledge. He tried to give the key back to Lucas, but the prince stopped him. Instead, Prince Lucas let Eliott keep the key, and Eliott came back to the library every night to read with the prince. And they lived happily ever after.”

Eliott’s last words are more whispered than spoken and his eyes never leave Lucas’. The both of them are rooted to the floor, the quiet of the store surrounding them and boxing them into this world. Lucas’ breath is caught in his chest and he can feel every nerve ending in his body lighting up, sending sparks down to his fingertips, his toes, through his heart and his mind and back out again. _Fuck._

Lucas breaks out into applause, cutting the silence that had fallen over the two. He gulps, forcing himself out of his daze, and steps away from Eliott. (Wait, when had he moved closer?) “I, uh, I believe you’ve earned yourself a book.”

He turns on his heel and goes a few aisles deeper into the bookstore, confident that Eliott is following him, careful to not show the other boy how much his story affected him. (And really, it was just some cheesy little thing about _princes_ and _libraries_ and _happily ever after_ , and Eliott was probably doing nothing more than playing off of their current situation but. Lucas feels like there was something bigger to it. There _has_ to be.)

When they get to the right aisle, Lucas crouches down to reach to the bottom shelf, pulling the necessary book out from the corner. “One anthology, as ordered,” he says, handing the textbook over to Eliott. Lucas can barely look at him, not trusting himself to do anything other than crumble under his gaze.

“Why, thank you,” the other boy responds, bowing his head slightly, like he’s talking to _royalty_ . He lets out a short giggle and Lucas’ head snaps up and their eyes meet _again_ and _god_ , that laugh is infectious. Lucas can’t help but join in, running a hand through his already-messy hair.

“I can check you out now if that’s all?”

He realizes what he said a second too late and Eliott is already stepping back, straightening up, staring down at Lucas with his chin high in the air, gaze strong and considering, and _shit_ , Lucas has fucked it up _already_ and —

“Yeah, go ahead.”

The blush blooming across Lucas’ cheeks only gets deeper, the smirk on Eliott’s lips only gets stronger.

(Oh, god, he’s going to die. Lucas is going to die _right now_ and it’ll be all Eliott’s fault, mark his words.)

Lucas shuffles around, finally pivoting towards the register and speedwalking back to his post. He can feel Eliott’s smirk on his back as they head over and Lucas slides behind the counter wordlessly, scanning the book and giving Eliott his receipt.

He must look so pathetic right now, Lucas thinks. Accidentally flirting with _the_ hottest guy he’s ever seen and getting so fucking flustered after the simplest comment. Is this what it’s like to talk to royalty? Or to a Greek god? (He doesn’t even want to linger on the fact that Eliott _actually flirted back._ That one has to wait until he’s back in his dorm tonight.)

Eliott stuffs the book into his backpack, the receipt already acting as a makeshift bookmark, and turns back to Lucas. That same silence from last week falls over them and that slight awkwardness returns. Lucas can feel that neither of them want this to be over, neither of them want to leave, but someone has to (and it’s not Lucas).

“I’ll see you around?” Eliott says it like it’s a question, like he’s not sure if Lucas wants to see him, and _that_ couldn’t be farther from the truth.

“You know where to find me.”

Eliott nods, tongue darting out to lick his lips, and Lucas uses up all the strength inside him to not stare at the movement.

“Thanks, Lucas,” he continues, backing away from the register and throwing his backpack over his shoulder. Lucas can’t help but track him as he goes, clear blue eyes glued to the boy’s retreating figure.

There’s a moment where their eyes meet as Eliott breezes through the door and it’s the first time Lucas saw him all over again. Lucas can feel goosebumps breaking out along his forearms as he holds the other boy’s gaze through the glass door and the front windows.

Eliott disappears from view, walking out into the courtyard, and Lucas lets out a breath he didn’t know he had trapped inside his chest.

“You okay?” Imane asks. Lucas jumps, startled (what is it with people scaring him at the register today?). She has a bright blue sweatshirt bundled in her arms, no doubt for that student he saw rifling through the racks earlier. “You’re looking kind of pale.”

“I-I’m fine. It’s nothing,” Lucas stammers, his movements stuttering and stopping as he flips through the sales binder by the computer. He’s avoiding her eyes, the dark irises searching, questioning, and she hums in response.

“If you’re sure,” she teases, giving him an almost audible eye roll and walking back over to the family waiting in the corner.

As soon as she’s out of earshot, Lucas sighs and opens up the desk drawer, pulling his abandoned creation back out onto the counter. This time, he reaches for the blue marker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> was the first half of this chapter just a way for me to cope with moving out of my own childhood home??? maybe so. 
> 
> also pls note that from here on out, anything i say that is remotely academic is completely thanks to google (except for media theory and gender theory, which is what i actually have a degree in lmao)
> 
> thank u for reading and pls leave a kudos or a comment if you feel so inclined ♥ 
> 
> tumblr: [tawmlinsun](https://tawmlinsun.tumblr.com) // [ficpost](https://tawmlinsun.tumblr.com/post/185552620364/you-just-float-through-he-sees-the-boy-on-his)


	5. five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long time no see, y'all 
> 
> thank you for your patience this past month!!! ♥ it's been a weird, transition-y time in my life and i just haven't been in the right headspace for writing, but i'm starting to get out of my funk (hopefully the next chapter won't take a full month lol) 
> 
> un-beta'd, all mistakes are mine
> 
> hope y'all enjoy!!!

The next day, Lucas wakes up early to get on the university shuttle into the city, but unlike last weekend, he’s not counting down the minutes to his return.

He arrives at his mother’s clinic just after visiting hours begin, signing in with reception and chatting with some of the nurses he sees most often. There’s Alice, the kind redhead who looks the other way when Lucas takes three too many candies from the bowl at the front desk. And Jerome, his mother’s favorite nurse, who always waits until she’s outside the door before he opens the dining room for their meals. But it’s Marie, a newer addition to the staff, who goes to get his mother, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder and giving it a squeeze before walking off to find Louise Lallemant.

Lucas and his mother always meet out in the courtyard, no matter the weather, so he heads outside to wait for her. The courtyard is crescent-shaped, the stone path along the perimeter curling through the center of the clinic, and its normally plush green lawn has gone brown and is dusted with a layer of snow. It’s fairly empty this early in the day, the crisp February air cold and biting, but Lucas sits at his mother’s favorite table anyway, the wrought iron seat sending chills along his back. He’s not there for long, though: the building exit door slams and Lucas whips his head up to see his mother walking over, pulling a sweater taught against her torso.

“Hey, mama,” he says, standing up as she comes towards him. Lucas wraps his arms around her frail shoulders, holding her tight, and she presses a kiss to his cheek.

“How are you, Lucas? Classes okay?” Her voice is thin but her fingers are thinner, and when they pull apart Lucas can feel every ridge of her knuckles pressing against his ribs.

“Yeah, everything’s great, mama.” He picks his backpack up off the ground and grabs her hand. “It’s cold; we should go inside.”

They make their way to the clinic’s largest lounge, just off to the side of the front desk. The room is expansive with bookshelves lining the walls, a small entertainment center in the corner, and loveseats scattered across the thick carpet. Lucas leads his mother over to one of the smaller tables, right by a few sprawling plants, and pulls out her seat for her. 

“I brought you something,” Lucas says as they sit down, his smile already brimming over with excitement. He digs into his backpack and pulls out the book, placing it in front of his mother, its intricate cover facing up at her.

“Lucas,” she breathes, pulling the novel closer to her. It’s _The Color Purple_ , her favorite book. Her old copy, battered and frayed from decades of reading, was thrown out by his father, the asshole, during the move to this clinic. (He claims it was a mistake, that he “accidentally” left it at the old clinic, but Lucas wouldn’t be surprised if it was the complete opposite. _The asshole_.)

“I figured you needed a new one.”

She reaches out to him, taking his hand in hers and giving it a light squeeze. “Thank you, love.” It’s more of a whisper than anything, and Lucas’ breath catches in his chest as her eyes turn watery.

“You’re welcome, mama. Oh, wait!” he starts, reaching back down into his backpack. “I brought us breakfast as well.” Lucas places a plastic container on the table and pulls off the cover: inside are a pair of Manon’s double chocolate muffins, just two of the many, many treats he had found waiting outside his bedroom door just a few hours ago.

He and the boys had hung out with the girls the previous night, all nine of them crammed into Manon, Emma, and Alexia’s dorm. The hard ciders had been distributed, as well as a few beers from Arthur’s mini-fridge, and everyone (except Imane, of course) was comfortably tipsy just an hour into the night. Lucas had spent most of his time talking with Imane, debating their latest biology lab while Yann looked on in amusement.

Based on the treats Lucas had been greeted with that morning (and the matching boxes by Arthur and Basile’s and Mika’s rooms), it seemed that Manon had gone on a baking spree after everyone had gone to sleep. Lucas hadn’t really talked to her last night, but she had seemed a little upset.

(He could understand why: Daphné had spent nearly the entire night waxing poetic about the pretty brunette in her Broadcast Communications class. Lucas was on the other side of the room, but he still heard about her “jade green eyes with just that hint of blue” and her “deep, deep chocolate hair, always curled just so; you should see it, Emma, it’s perfect, I swear.” He can relate to Daphné, sure. He’s also harboring the beginnings of a _massive_ crush on a boy he barely knows, but at least he’s not so loud about it.)

Lucas had filed it away on his growing list of things to talk to Manon about later, but right now, his attention is fully on his mother.

“One of Manon’s creations,” he says, taking a muffin out of the container and handing it to his mother. “I figured it’d be better than whatever they’re serving this morning.” Lucas digs into his own treat, peeling back the wrapper and taking a huge bite.

His mother chuckles, reaching across the table to swipe a bit of chocolate off of her son’s cheek. “My sweet boy. You spoil me.”

Lucas shrugs, passing a bottle of water over to her. “You’re my mom,” he explains, like it’s the simplest, most obvious thing in the world. She shakes her head, a movement so small Lucas nearly misses it, but he can’t miss how her eyes turn glassy as she unwraps her muffin. He knows what she’s thinking: that it’s too much, that he does too much for her, but Lucas knows he doesn’t do enough. (He’ll spend the rest of his life making up for all of the shit he pulled on her in high school.)

They eat as the lounge fills up around them and the rest of the clinic slowly wakes up to a chilly Saturday morning. Someone puts on a jazz record, the crackling album providing the soundtrack for reunions between residents and their families, and warmth returns to the room.

After Lucas and his mother finish up their breakfast, Lucas swipes away the crumbs, throwing them into the trash bin by the table.

“We did checkers last time, right?” He’s already halfway out of his seat, bright eyes scanning the game shelf on the other side of the lounge. “My pick?”

His mother chuckles, waving a hand to send him away. “Your pick.”

Lucas jogs over, swiping the chess board from the shelf and bringing it back over to his mother.

“Why am I not surprised?” she asks, and there’s a glint in her light eyes as she starts to set up the game.

They have their traditions, their rituals, for all of Lucas’ visits. It changes depending on how his mother is feeling, of course, but lately there have been more good days than bad. (Lucas is _happy relieved proud worried scared_ all at once.) On those good days, they stick to their favorites: for his mother that means checkers and reading, and for Lucas, it means chess and piano.

Two hours and many rounds of chess later (“C’mon, mama, best out of five!”), Lucas and his mother start their standard walk through the entire clinic, the one they go on during every visit, as long as she’s feeling up to it. (Sometimes they only get partway through the facility before they have to turn back, and sometimes Lucas goes off on his own while his mother sleeps the day away, but Lucas appreciates whatever she has to offer, always.)

On her best days, they tell each other stories. It keeps things interesting, his mother says. Gives her a new perspective on the place.

“This guy, over here” his mother whispers as they weave through a hallway, pointing out a man standing by a bay window. Her arm is linked with Lucas’ and their steps are slow, making their way through each floor at a snail’s pace. “He hogs the remote in the third floor lounge.”

“The one with the massive TV?” Lucas asks, and his mother hums in response. “What does he watch?”

His mother giggles, and it’s young and light and fresh, and Lucas feels a grin pull at his cheeks.

“He switches off between gory horror films and bad rom-coms.” Lucas bursts out laughing, drawing the attention of the man in question. “They’re terrible! They drive everyone out of the room.”

“Maybe that’s what he wants,” Lucas suggests. “My turn?”

“Your turn.”

Lucas sighs, scanning the nearly empty hallway for a story to tell. He’s always loved his mother’s stories, but was never the greatest at creating them for himself.

This time, though, tales of _princes_ and _libraries_ and _keys to the kingdom_ are at the tip of his tongue, threatening to spill out as he catches a glance of a stack of books by a windowsill. But he pushes them down, twists his neck around to find a plant or a chair or something, _anything_ , else to talk about.

“That vase,” he begins, coughing out the words. “It was stolen from an art museum in Europe, but no one knows which one. That’s why they haven’t given it back yet.”

“ _That’s_ the story you’re going with?” his mother scoffs, unimpressed. “Not your best, Lucas.”

“Well,” he huffs out. “We can’t all be storytellers like you.”

(She never did write that book she was always talking about, wishing after. She would use Lucas’ bedtime stories as critique sessions, briefly explaining new plot ideas to her son before asking his opinion. He was far too young to understand the complexity of the narrative, but he always offered up his thoughts, as juvenile as they may have been. _But mama, what if they were superheroes? And they went back in time to save the dinosaurs? That would be so cool!_  Lucas supposes their story walks are the closest she’ll get to that book for now, but that’s okay. He’ll always be a willing audience.)

She presses a kiss to his cheek and tugs on his arm, pulling him in the direction of the dining hall.

“Let’s go eat, Lucas.”

After lunch, they retreat back to his mother’s room, and they keep the television on in the background as they play more games. Its buzz fills the empty space between the snapping of cards on the table, the two of them burning through the hours as they go through their rounds.

“And that’s another one for me,” his mother says triumphantly, sweeping the cards into her hand after her third win.

Lucas sighs. He had won nearly every round of Spit earlier, but as soon as they had switched to War, the deck had gone in his mother’s favor. “Let’s do a new game now, yeah?” Lucas pleads. “Go Fish, maybe?” His mother chuckles, already shuffling the cards together and splaying them out in front of them.

There’s a knock on the door and a soft, “Louise?” before a blonde head is peeking into the room. “Group therapy in 5,” Maria says, giving the two a smile before exiting back out into the hallway.

Lucas’ mother sighs, standing up from her seat, and Lucas starts to pack away their card game. She shoos his hands away, mumbling that she’d tidy everything up later. “I’ll be back in an hour and a half, but you don’t have to stay.”

He furrows his brow. “I always stay, mama,” Lucas replies, shaking his head. She sighs, brushing her knuckles over his cheek and pressing a light kiss to his forehead. Lucas doesn’t quite catch her reply, the whisper muffled by the swoop of his hair, but he makes sure to give her hand a light squeeze as she leaves. 

Lucas cleans up the rest of their board game quickly, scooping up his backpack and rushing to the building exit. He only has 90 minutes: he needs to work quickly.

Later, when his mother gets back from her group session, she’s greeted with Lucas reading his biology textbook in her loveseat, a slightly dented pizza box sitting on the table beside him.

“Lucas…?” she asks, slowly stepping into the room.

“Hey, mama,” he answers, closing his book and sitting up fully. “I got us dinner.” A bright smile crawls its way across her lips and she walks over to Lucas, pulling him into a tight hug and kissing the top of his head.

“You’re too good to me, darling. Too good.” Lucas’ breath hitches, and it waters the seed of worry that has permanently taken root there. He regrets the years he spent distancing himself from his mother, losing out on memories and moments and _love_ , but most of all, he regrets how much he hurt his mother in the process. He hates that she thinks she doesn’t deserve little gestures like this, little expressions of affection and care.

But he can’t really tell her all that. He hasn’t found the words for it yet, and Lucas is pretty sure words will fail him when he finally discovers their hiding spot. For now, he breathes out a simple, “I love you, mama.”

Her answering smile calms the burning in his chest, but only slightly. _(One day, one day, one day.)_

After they eat, the two go upstairs to one of the smaller lounges, the one with the little reading nooks along the windows. It’s his mother’s favorite, and frankly, it’s Lucas’ too. The sunlight streams into the room at just the right angle, not too bright but always enough to illuminate the pages of whatever book his mother is tearing through that day. There’s a piano in the corner as well, and sometimes, when he can tell his mother is feeling down, Lucas will play her favorite pieces as she reads, just like he did when he was growing up.

They settle down into a nook in the far corner of the room, the window lined with a rainbow of plush cushions. Lucas trudges his way through the end of the biology chapter, bright blue highlighter in hand, while his mother breaks into her new copy of _The Color Purple._ They face each other and their knees knock together every so often. It’s quiet, it’s easy, and Lucas feels right at home.

About an hour later, the alarm on Lucas’ phone cuts through the room, signaling the end of the day’s visiting hours.

“Already?” his mother asks, and Lucas gives her a sad nod. Days as good as this one aren’t too common, and Lucas savors them whenever they come around.

He stands, sliding his textbook back into his bag, and they head downstairs to the building’s exit, arms wrapped around each other.

They reach the doors too early, Lucas thinks, and he sends Alice a small wave as they come closer (she lets him stay late sometimes, especially on the good days, and Lucas hopes today is no exception). He stops just before the exit, turning to face his mother, but she’s already looking up at him with questions in her eyes.

“You seem a little lighter, love,” she murmurs, tracing his cheekbones with the backs of her knuckles. It’s comforting, it’s calming, and Lucas opens his mouth to speak but she cuts him off.

“You don’t have to tell me now, or ever if that’s what you want. But I hope that whatever’s happening keeps happening.” She smirks, shooting him a wink. “Or whoever.”

Lucas feels himself go red and steps forward into her arms, hiding his burning cheeks in her blonde curls.

“Me too, mama.”

* * *

 And it does.

Over the next two weeks, Eliott comes into the bookstore _four_ separate times, all conveniently during Lucas’ shifts. (Lucas doesn’t really know how Eliott pulls that one off, especially since his schedule changes pretty much every week, but he’s not complaining.) Eliott never buys more than a book or two, but he always stays for at least ten minutes, slowly filling up the empty spaces in Lucas’ day. 

And Lucas knows how that stupid saying goes, the one about accidents and coincidences and patterns or whatever, but it’s not that. It’s not a _pattern,_ it’s not purposeful. Eliott just procrastinates buying his books. And Lucas just has enough good karma stored up that he gets to be on shift when Eliott comes in. _(You_ _’_ _re the seller, he_ _’_ _s the customer. That_ _’_ _s all it is, that_ _’_ _s all it is, that_ _’_ _s all it is._ Lucas repeats it like a mantra every time Eliott’s in the store, letting his mind scream the chant into his veins and through to his heart, trying his best to slow its rapid beating.)

Anyway, Eliott’s going to run out of books to buy at some point. Students can only take up to four classes per semester, and once Eliott has all of his books, that’ll be it. He won’t need to come into the store anymore, won’t have any reason to visit the shop. Lucas thinks he should start preparing himself now for that day, for that dreaded final day, whenever it may come.

“What kind of a schedule is this?” Lucas had asked during one of Eliott’s visits, clutching the syllabus for a religious philosophy seminar in his hand. Earlier that week, Lucas had been tasked with finding an anthropology book for Eliott, making this new seminar his fourth class. (A resounding chorus of _shit fuck no not yet fuck not yet please no_ started up in Lucas’ brain as soon as he had looked down at the new syllabus.) “Seriously, this is the most random combination of classes I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of schedules.”

“I’m, just, uh,” Eliott had said, waving a hand through the air, his knuckles stained with forest green paint. “Just finishing up my GenEds, taking a few electives. You know how it goes.” He had trailed off, bouncing on his toes before clearing his throat. “I, uh, I didn’t know the bookstore held events,” he continued, nodding over to a sign by the register advertising an author’s autobiography reading and Q&A that weekend.

Lucas had turned to look back at the other boy, brow furrowed. Eliott has been a student here for three years and yet he doesn’t know the bookstore hosts events? _Nope. No way._ The bookstore sends their weekly event calendar to the entire student body every Monday. (Half the time Lucas ends up helping the managers format the emails, persuaded by the promises of a salary boost and an escape from the register on slow days.) Plus, there are flyers all over campus for the bigger events. Lucas doesn’t think Eliott’s _that_ oblivious to the outside world.

“Really?” Lucas had asked, doubtful. Eliott had only shrugged, reaching a hand behind himself to scratch at the base of his neck. Lucas rolled his eyes, walking away to lead Eliott over to the philosophy section.

“Looks interesting, though,” the boy had called after Lucas, jogging forward to catch up. 

A snort. “Yeah, two hours of manning the refreshments table and listening to some dude drone on about himself. Riveting, yeah?”

“At least you’ll know how the rest of us feel when you talk.”

Lucas had scoffed, slowly pivoting around to face an already-giggling Eliott, mirth gleaming in his clear blue eyes. “Fuck off,” he muttered, his voice filled with too much adoration and not enough annoyance. This, of course, had brought the _real laughs_ out of Eliott, and Lucas had to turn away to filter through the shelves before it got to be too much. (His stammering heart really needs to get itself under control.)

“So that means you’re working the event, right?” Eliott had asked, his voice still light as air. “Maybe I’ll come visit you.”

“I won’t be able to actually talk to you, much less help you find any books. You’re on your own there, man.”

“Well,” Eliott had said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “What’s the point of going, then?”

_(To see me anyway.)_

* * *

It’s fun, their banter. It’s easy, even easier than with the boys, even easier than with _Yann_ , words falling out of Lucas’ mouth without a second thought. His usual filter crumbles around Eliott, whether that’s good or bad, but it seems that Eliott doesn’t care. His responses are quick. Eliott throws Lucas off balance, disrupts everything he thought he knew about himself and how he works.

It’s terrifying, and Lucas welcomes it.

He doesn’t want to call it flirting, even if that seems to be the best definition for this _thing_ they’re doing. Because if he calls it flirting, then he’ll get hopeful, and hope is dangerous. Lucas held onto hope for his father for _years_ and look how that had turned out.

But Eliott had actually gone to the bookstore’s event, in the end. He came in a little late and had to stand towards the back and off to the side, but it put him in perfect view of Lucas’ spot by the snacks. And Lucas, all too aware of the managers standing beside him, had tried to pay attention to the speaker, but Eliott kept making these faces, catching Lucas’ eye during lulls in the lecture and twisting his features up into expressions fit for a clown.

Lucas had nearly made it through the entire event without breaking, but in the last two minutes, as the author was answering his final question, Eliott had done this…this _thing._ His lips had curved into the deepest frown Lucas had ever seen, chin dimpled and nostrils flared, one eyebrow raised to the heavens while the other scrunched down to his eyelashes. And Lucas was too bored, too amused, too _smitten_ to do anything but giggle into his palm, his laughter masked by the audience’s applause as the author left the stage.

He had tried to catch him as the crowd dispersed, locking their eyes together in an attempt to draw the other boy over to Lucas’ station. But Eliott, the absolute menace, had _winked_ at Lucas instead and slipped out of the store, breezing through the exit while Lucas was stuck pouring cups of too-red punch and handing out allergy-friendly cookies to the guests. His body had buzzed for hours afterwards, nerve endings alight from being in Eliott’s presence for so long, so fucking long, even though they hadn’t exchanged a single word.

(Still, it filled Lucas with that hope he had so desperately tried to avoid. He could feel it trickling through his fingers, his toes, at first only a few drops but quickly becoming a steady stream of _maybe_ and _possibly_ and _I think so._ )

And through those weeks of bookstore visits, through the teasing and the laughter and the increasingly uncharacteristic textbook requests, Lucas learns.

First, he learns that Eliott has an absolutely horrible taste in music: he listens to dubstep. Out of all the music on this earth, Eliott listens to _dubstep_.

Lucas had discovered _that_ particular bombshell during a trip to the arts section of the store, the two of them in search of a music history textbook.

“Why do you have so many books on The Beatles?” Eliott had asked, pulling a few copies from the shelf. Lucas had swatted Eliott’s charcoal-stained fingers away immediately, much to the other boy’s amusement.

“There’s a music and media course in the communications department, and apparently they talk about The Beatles a lot,” he explained, slipping the books back on the shelf. “Why, do you not like them?”

Eliott shrugged. “Not really my type of music.” _What?_

“Eliott,” Lucas scoffed. “It’s _The Beatles_. Everyone likes The Beatles.”

“Not me.”

Lucas rolled his eyes. So this boy was a heathen, apparently. “Well, what’s your type, then?” Eliott’s eyebrows had shot up in a second, his cool gaze trailing over from the shelf to Lucas, making the boy squirm. _Fuck, Lucas, you really need to stop doing that. Really, just get a fucking grip and_ _—_

“Dubstep, mostly.”

Lucas thoughts skidded to a halt, and he nearly choked on his own breath. _Out of all the things he could fucking say_ _…_

“Dubstep? You listen to _dubstep_?”

Eliott had laughed at him then, and Lucas knew he probably looked like an idiot, standing in the middle of the aisle with wide eyes and a gaping mouth, arm already halfway towards a book. But frankly, he didn’t fucking care.

“I’m serious, Eliott! What the fuck?” His affronted tone only brought more laughter out of Eliott, and if Lucas hadn’t been so shocked by this revelation, he might’ve tried a little harder to memorize the sound of Eliott’s delighted giggles, all revelations within themselves.

“It’s good!” And, god, Lucas couldn’t even _begin_ to find the words to dispute that. “Here,” Eliott said as he calmed down, pulling tangled headphones from his pocket.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Lucas replied, stumbling backwards. “Do _not_ come near me with those things.”

But then Eliott had smiled at him with a plea in his eyes and really, how could Lucas have ever said no to him? So he muttered a low, “fine…” and he stepped forward and stuffed the headphone into his ear and braced himself for the impending slaughter.

God, it was awful. Lucas doesn’t think he’ll ever recover from the chainsaw Eliott’s music had driven through his ear. But Lucas _also_ doesn’t think he’ll ever recover from the dance Eliott had begun as soon as he hit play: it was all bouncy shoulders and failing limbs (but only a little, because they were in a bookstore, after all), and Lucas was _enamored._ He had barely managed to wipe the dumbfounded smile off of his face before Eliott had turned to ask him what he thought of the music, if they could even really call it that.

“It’s…cool?” He tried to give Eliott a smile, a real one, but there was a jackhammer drilling into his brain and sending his heart beating out of time. Lucas had screwed his eyes shut against the sounds.

“You hate it.”

Lucas sighed. “Yeah, I do,” he had said, unable to look at what he was sure was a disappointed Eliott. “But it’s cool. I like discovering new things.”

* * *

Lucas is learning, or maybe discovering, more about Eliott with every visit to the bookstore.

Eliott’s favorite color is blue, even though all he wears is black. He took last semester off, which explains why Lucas had never noticed him before, but Eliott doesn’t say why he left. (Lucas decides he doesn’t need to know, doesn’t deserve to know until Eliott is ready to tell him.) He prefers drawing to painting, but paints more often because he wants to get better at it, and sometimes drifts off into photography and sculpting when he needs a change of pace. Eliott lives in one of the upperclassman dorms with two of his best friends from home and another friend they met freshman year, but he thinks he’ll get his own apartment in the city next summer, right before he starts his final semester of school.

And in return, Eliott learns, too.

He learns that Lucas’ favorite color is green, and that it’s been green ever since he was a little kid (Lucas has had more of a fondness for blue these days, though, but he can’t tell Eliott that). He learns that Lucas is graduating a semester early, but that he wants to take a bit of time off before going into medical school. After the Dubstep Incident, Lucas had let it slip that he played a few instruments, and Eliott had spent a solid five minutes listing every instrument he knows in the hopes of guessing the ones Lucas plays (piano, guitar, and drums, for the record). Lucas had also shared his more refined music taste with Eliott, sending the boy off with a list of The Clash songs to check out before he dared to step foot in the bookstore again. 

It’s a give-and-take sort of thing, Lucas thinks, and he can already see himself giving far more than Eliott is willing to let him take, but there’s not much he can do to stop it. He’s always been this way, always poured his entire being into people who never wanted a single drop in the first place.

And when Lucas finds his heart leaking little details of his life into Eliott’s waiting hands, he thinks about how every visit is just one step closer to the end, one book closer to finishing out all of Eliott’s syllabi.

They’re barreling towards it, and every time Lucas catches a glimpse of that bulky bomber jacket through the window, he has to wonder if this is it, if this is the last time Eliott will step through the front doors. He knows it’s coming, that Eliott will soon have his fill, both of the bookstore and of Lucas, and move on. It’s fun and it’s playful but it’s _temporary_ and Lucas has to remind himself of that whenever he catches himself falling.

But then something else whispers at the back of Lucas’ mind: _you know Eliott_ _’_ _s only taking four classes, but he_ _’_ _s bought books for five._ Lucas shuts the voice down just as quickly as it comes, but it echoes between his ears, a broken record playing over and over again whenever Eliott comes into the store. It mixes with the lilt of Eliott’s own voice, teasing as he jokes about his poor cooking skills, bright as he dives into the beauty of the film he watched last night, dull as he complains about an assignment that had taken up his entire weekend. Lucas’ voice is somewhere in there, too, the drumline to Eliott’s lead guitar, just background noise to the main event, but it’s there if he listens closely.

Lucas lets their music play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope this one was worth the wait ♥
> 
> thank you for reading and don't forget to leave a kudos/comment if u feel so inclined :)
> 
> tumblr: [tawmlinsun](https://tawmlinsun.tumblr.com) // [ficpost](https://tawmlinsun.tumblr.com/post/186185879499/you-just-float-through-he-sees-the-boy-on-his)


	6. six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *peeks out from around a corner* hello? anyone still here? *crickets* alrighty then.
> 
> 1) i'm so sorry for the wait on this chapter!! inspiration struck for some prompts and other wips, and this just kept falling to the wayside (but on the bright side, i _did_ upload a bunch of other fics during the wait for chapter six!!). apparently my writer's block is fic-specific 
> 
> 2) thank you to everyone who has reached out in the past two months to ask about yjft 💗💗 it means so much more to me than you know and you've seriously helped me keep going with this work 💗💗 
> 
> 3) now back to business:
> 
> un-beta'd, all mistakes are mine
> 
> 💞 hope you like this chapter 💞

"Dude, you should’ve seen Baz the other day,” Yann starts, leaning on the counter. Lucas sighs, nudging Yann’s elbows off the edge as per usual, making room for the rental returns he has to scan into the system.

“You didn’t let him borrow your skateboard again, did you?” Lucas asks, lips twisted up in a grimace, his next book frozen in mid-air.

“Of course not,” Yann replies with an eye roll. “He borrowed Arthur’s instead.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Lucas breathes, barely stifling a laugh. Why he chose these three idiots as his best friends is beyond him.

“ _Anyway_ , as I was saying…”

There’s a whoosh of cold February air as the jingle of a bell floats over to them, signaling a new customer. It’s light and dancing, pinpricks of sun darting through the trees, and Lucas zeros in on the lingering melody. He flicks his gaze up to the clock on the wall and smiles. Right on time.

“Hey, Lucas,” comes a voice, Lucas’ favorite voice, the only one he wants to hear, really. It sends a calm down his spine and he feels his entire body sigh with relief.

All of Lucas’ best friend manners go flying out the window as he immediately turns towards the source of the sound, tuning out Yann’s continuing story to talk to the newcomer.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite customer.”

Eliott smiles, a bashful grin stretching across his cheeks as he walks up to the counter. The tip of his ear is smudged with maroon, but Lucas glances over at it for only a second before he’s distracted by the matching swipe of color just below Eliott’s bottom lip. It’s pulled thin, curving up with the boy’s smile, and Lucas clenches his hands into fists before he can do something as stupid as reach out to swipe it away.

Yann lets out an affronted noise from beside him, but Lucas’ attention is still on Eliott. “Hey, I thought _I_ was your favorite customer,” Yann pipes up with a smack to Lucas’ shoulder.

Lucas’ hand flies to the stinging skin, rubbing over his sweater gingerly with a soft _hey!_ in Yann’s direction. (It doesn’t even hurt, really, but Yann made Lucas look away from Eliott, and that is a crime in and of itself. Worthy of meager revenge, surely.)

“You don’t come in here enough,” Lucas scolds, narrowing his eyes at his best friend.

“What, and he does?”

Lucas tilts his chin up, one hand still curled around his shoulder, and looks over to Eliott. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, unease rolling off him in waves as his eyes dart between the two boys.

This just won’t do.

“Yeah,” Lucas says softly, palm falling down his forearm as he turns to face Eliott. “He does.”

The answering smile is blinding but it shakes, Eliott beaming at him for a split second before it falls into something safer, more controlled. Lucas hasn’t seen this smile on Eliott before. (And he’s seen a lot of Eliott’s smiles, catalogued them all in his memory for those rare days off when he has no chance of seeing the boy at the bookstore.) Eliott’s shoulders are slouched forward and his chin is in his chest, and Lucas curses whatever’s making Eliott feel so small.

“Well,” Eliott starts, slow and unsure, “I’m honored to hold the title, Lucas.”

He can feel Yann’s curious gaze drilling holes into the sides of their faces, but fuck if Lucas cares. As long as he’s smiling at Eliott and Eliott’s smiling back at him (with that damn swipe of maroon underneath his lip), nothing else quite matters.

But Yann, the idiot, clears his throat and the moment is broken.

“Oh, sorry,” Lucas begins, throwing an apologetic glance over to Yann as he stands up from where he was leaning on the counter. “Yann, this is Eliott. Eliott, this is Yann, my best friend.”

“And roommate!” Yann adds, sticking a hand out for a fist bump. It hangs in the air as Eliott shifts his gaze between the other two, a small smile dawning across his features.

“Nice to meet you,” Eliott responds, returning the fist bump readily. He’s bright again, bouncing up on his toes as he inches closer to Lucas’ spot behind the counter. “How long have you two known each other?”

“Since birth.”

Lucas snorts, rolling his eyes. “We met when we were nine,” he tells Eliott, shaking his head at Yann. “Beat him on the swings at recess,” he says with a smirk, a mocking pride in his voice.

“I was _tired_ ,” Yann groans, throwing a frustrated hand in the air. “I beat every single person on the playground and then this idiot came along.” He shakes his head at Lucas with a short sigh. “I still think you cheated.”

“How could I have cheated?” Lucas challenges, lifting a defiant chin in Yann’s direction. “We jumped off the swings at the same time!”

“You were higher when you jumped off! Plus, my legs were longer so they hit the ground sooner.”

Lucas scoffs. The amount of times they’ve had this argument in the past nine years is _astounding._ “Just because you had freakishly long legs doesn’t mean I cheated. And anyway, we were basically the same height!”

“Are you kidding?” Yann blurts out, eyes wide. “We were _not_ the same —"

“I mean, you were nine, right?” Eliott cuts in, running his considering eyes over both boys before they come to rest on Lucas. “You couldn’t have been much shorter than you are now.”

Yann barks out a laugh, slapping a hand down on the counter in surprise. Lucas barely flinches at the noise, too busy staring at Eliott in shock. _The audacity…_

“I like him!” Yann says, jutting a thumb over at a grinning Eliott. “Keep him around, Lucas.”

“Yeah, keep me around, Lucas,” Eliott repeats, teasing glint in his eyes as he smirks at the boy.

Lucas shakes his head, leaning away from the counter. “Are you two ganging up on me right now?” he asks, affronted. “Really, Eliott? After all we’ve shared, you choose _him?”_

Eliott shrugs, glancing over to where Yann is _still_ laughing. “He likes me,” he says by way of explanation. He steps closer, ducking his head a bit, and Lucas leans in to catch his words. “Do _you_ like me?”

Lucas head snaps up, neck twinging with the speed, and he stares at Eliott with his lips parted. There are a lot of ways Lucas can answer that question, but he can’t seem to find one that works.

(How does he tell Eliott that he likes him a dangerous amount, a _really_ dangerous amount, and that Eliott better leave and not come back if he wants to keep himself safe from the impending destruction?)

(He can’t, that’s the thing.)

Instead Lucas just looks, and he looks and he looks and he looks, and Eliott’s eyebrow quirks down at him and the corner of his lip darts up in what Lucas thinks might be hope. And Lucas draws in a short breath, nearly ready to speak (to say what, he doesn’t know), but a hand slams back down on the table.

They dart apart.

“Man, I think you’re my favorite customer, too,” Yann says, clapping his free hand on Eliott’s shoulder. Eliott lets out a huff of appreciation as Lucas glares at his best friend.

“Anyway,” Yann continues, none the wiser to the daggers Lucas is throwing him. “Sorry, dude. Did you want a book or something?”

With that, Eliott snaps into action, mumbling an _of course!_ as he swings his bag around to his chest, pulling a sheet of paper from a pocket.

“It’s the —”

“The one highlighted in blue, I know,” Lucas finishes, taking the paper from Eliott. (And if he purposely reaches a little too far, widens his grasp a little too much so that the tips of his fingers will brush Eliott’s, no one has to know.)

Lucas folds the page up so that the necessary book is at the top, and steps back from the counter. He gets to the front and pauses, slowly craning his neck towards Eliott and Yann.

“I don’t know if I should leave you two alone,” Lucas muses, gaze flicking between the two boys in front of him.

“Am I not coming with you?” Eliott asks, brow furrowed. “To find the book?”

Lucas’ heart leaps in his chest as he takes in the sight of Eliott already poised to follow Lucas to the textbooks, his back nearly completely turned on Yann.

Fuck _._

Lucas falters, fingers tensing up with the need to grab Eliott by the hand and pull him back into the stacks, get lost in the shelves as they find the most ridiculous books on the most convoluted subjects, poking fun at each other’s attempts to decipher the titles. He would fall into the mess of the bookstore and Eliott would follow, trusting and sure. They’d resurface as a unit, walking together with the chosen book clutched in Lucas’ hand, knuckles brushing Eliott’s with every step towards the register.

It would be like every other time Eliott would come in, but it wouldn’t.

Lucas wishes he could live it.

It’s just that Yann _rarely_ comes into the store; he only made it in today because his stats class got cancelled last minute. And they’ve barely even seen each other outside of the dorm and their shared French class, what with Lucas taking extra shifts at the bookstore to save up for summer (and maybe see Eliott a little more often, too).

Any other time with literally any other person, this wouldn’t be an issue. Lucas would ditch any number of his other friends in a heartbeat if Eliott wanted to go somewhere. (The thought that Lucas is so ready to make Eliott his priority is only slightly terrifying, but that’s something to consider later.)

_(I like you a dangerous amount.)_

Those pesky best friend manners come rushing back, and Lucas’ face turns sorry as he looks at Eliott.

“I don’t trust Yann alone,” Lucas blurts out, hoping to clear the tension, the _hurt_ in Eliott’s eyes. _Fuck_. “I don’t trust Yann at all, actually.”

Yann lets out an offended scoff, but something sparks in his eyes.

Lucas has made a mistake.

“Uh, the initials we carved into the tree in middle school beg to differ,” Yann goads, smirking at Lucas.

“Shut the _fuck_ up, Yann,” Lucas mumbles, but it’s lost under Eliott’s delighted laugh. Something flares deep in his belly, like butterflies on fire, and Lucas thinks the flames are tinged green.

“Go find the book, Lucas,” Eliott says, waving him off. “I need to hear this story.”

“Oh, dude, so we were twelve, right? And I got a Swiss Army Knife for Christmas and…” Yann starts, and Lucas rolls his eyes as he backs away.

“I’ll be back in one minute!” he calls over his shoulder as he goes, shaking his head as he catches Yann’s playful gaze. “One minute!”

Lucas jogs ahead, glancing down at the syllabus in his hand as he approaches the textbooks, but he stops short.

“Eliott, what the fuck?”

Lucas swivels around, echoing laughter fading out after his outburst. He stares over at Eliott, face twisted up in confusion.

“ _The History of Ballet?_ ” he asks, reading off the paper in his hands. “Since when do you take dance classes?”

“Oh, uh, I don’t,” Eliott answers, scratching at the back of his neck. “It’s, uh, it’s for my French Cinema class. Beaumont, you know? W-We’re watching a dance film next so he wants us to have some background knowledge, get a good foundation and all that.” Eliott nods sharply, shifting his weight between his feet, flicking his gaze down to the floor between every other word.

And it’s almost a question, like Eliott’s not quite sure of it, like he’s convincing himself that he needs this book.

Odd.

Lucas hums, nodding slowly.

“Should’ve known,” he says with a shrug. “You’re not graceful enough for ballet.”

“I’m plenty graceful, Lucas,” Eliott retorts, straightening up to fix his posture.

Lucas snorts. “Tell that to the paint splattered all over your face.”

“The what?” Eliott’s hand instantly flies to his cheek, and Lucas snickers as he turns back around to head into the shelves. He can hear Yann directing Eliott to the maroon smudges on his skin, and their voices carry over to where Lucas is scouring the performing arts section for the book.

_“No, dude, it’s like right under your lip.”_

_“Here?”_

_“Wait, I think it’s on your ear, too.”_

_“Shit, I thought I got it all earlier.”_

Lucas laughs quietly to himself as he runs his fingers over the texts, quickly finding the necessary book and pulling it off the shelf.

He’s about to walk back to the front and put an end to whatever Eliott and Yann are doing when he hesitates, lingering at the edge of the empty aisle. His thumb twitches, scratching across the paper in his hands. Curiosity bites at the edge of his brain, ravenous and eating away at his resolve. Something about this is wrong.

Carefully, Lucas unfolds the sheet, opening up the full syllabus. Right at the top of the page reads the class title: _Ballet, the Body, and the History of the Stage._

Definitely not French Cinema.

He folds the paper back up, fixing it so that the class title is hidden behind the crease like before. Lucas’ fingers shake as he slides them across the sheet to press down on the fold so that it’s set without any hint of ever being opened.

Lucas bites his bottom lip, rolling it over his teeth as he stares down at the syllabus.

Eliott could be picking up the book for a friend and running the errand as a favor. (Eliott’s nice like that. So nice, so kind, the kindest heart Lucas has encountered in all his 18 years. He’s so _good_ that it hurts sometimes, Lucas thinks.)

But why would he lie about the class?

It doesn’t really take a genius to figure out Eliott’s been lying at least a little bit about his classes. Even after taking a semester off, he would only be allowed to take one extra class at the most. By Lucas’ count, this is course number six.

And even if Eliott really _is_ taking this dance studies class, why would he be afraid of Lucas finding out about it? So much so that he spits out a lie like he rehearsed it on the way over.

It’s just that Lucas thought they had something building. Something mutual, though a little unbalanced, because Lucas has never been good at controlling his heart. But it would still be reciprocated, solid, and growing steady unlike everything else in Lucas’ life.  And now Eliott can’t even trust Lucas with something as simple as his class schedule.

Go figure.

Mind racing, Lucas sighs and slips the syllabus into the ballet book before walking back out to the front. Eliott and Yann are laughing when he gets there, the former nearly doubled over from whatever Yann’s saying.

“Do I want to know?” Lucas interrupts, circling the counter to get back behind the register. He eyes them warily, but something warm is bursting in his chest at the sight of Eliott and Yann joking around together. It nearly drowns out the uncertainty coating his bones.

“No, bro, trust me,” Yann wheezes. He lets out a low whistle, clapping a hand on Eliott’s shoulder once more as their laughter peters out.

“You found the book okay?” Eliott asks, rosy-cheeked.

“Don’t I always?” Lucas counters, checking out the book. “If anything, you’re the one slowing me down.”

Eliott tilts his head a bit, and it would be cute if Lucas wasn’t so torn up. “I’ll accept that,” Eliott concedes, flashing a smile Lucas can’t help but reciprocate. (Damn sunshine boy.)

He finishes up the transaction quickly, slipping the book into a bag as Eliott swipes his card.

“See you in a couple days, Eliott,” Lucas says, holding out the receipt as he leans an elbow on the counter.

Eliott pulls it from Lucas’ hand slowly, fingertips dragging against each other for the second time that afternoon. He lays an easy arm on the counter, bending down so that he and Lucas are level. “What makes you think I’ll be back?” Eliott asks, tone smooth and too cool for the pounding in Lucas’ chest.

He pauses, letting his eyes roam around Eliott’s paint-free face, so open despite his earlier white lies. “You always come back,” Lucas mutters, low and true.

Eliott huffs out a sigh, grinning as he goes. “Yeah,” he starts. “I always do.”

They hold each other’s gazes for a moment, a heavy moment, a million hopes and worries pouring out of Lucas’ eyes and into Eliott’s waiting palms.

A shared breath, and then Eliott begins to walk backwards from the counter.

“Nice meeting you,” he calls to Yann, giving him a slight wave.

“You, too, bro!”

Lucas watches as Eliott leaves the store, his departure marked by another gust of winter air and the chime of a bell. Lucas’ eyes don’t leave the front, though, staring through the glass as Eliott walks away.

He waits until Eliott looks back into the store to contort his face into a comedy mask, lips curling upward as his brow shoots down.

Lucas can’t hear Eliott’s laugh through the doors but he can see it sparkling off the snow coating the ground. It’s just as luminous as he is.

Eliott slowly moves out of view, his shadow disappearing from the icy sidewalk inch by inch. Lucas stares after it, his smile fading as the sun creeps into the cracks in the concrete, erasing the last traces of Eliott.  

“Were you ever going to tell me about him?”

Lucas’ snaps his neck around to look at Yann with wide eyes. Lucas can only hold onto the contact for a second before he drops his gaze down to the books still waiting on the counter.

“There’s nothing to tell,” he says, short and simple and not at all sweet.

Yann scoffs. “I doubt that.”

“Yann —"

“C’mon, Lucas,” he interjects, voice low as he leans forward onto the counter. “I saw the way he was looking at you. And I saw the way you were looking at him.”

Lucas can’t meet Yann’s gaze, can’t look him in the eye. “Can we just…can we talk about something else, please?” he asks, desperation dripping from his lips.

“Lucas…”

“Emma!” Lucas shouts, spotting a head of long brown hair out of the corner of his eye. She whirls around, brow high and wary. “I need to take a quick break,” Lucas rushes. “Man the register for me while I’m gone? And look, you can talk to Yann, too!”

Lucas doesn’t wait for her answer. He dashes out from behind the counter, speedwalking to the break room and ignoring Yann’s calls of _Lucas! Lucas, wait!_ from behind him.

He nearly slams the door when he enters the break room, letting his head fall back against the cool steel, breathing deep through his tired lungs.

It’s quiet in here, eerie and menacing with the hum of the fluorescent lights above and the old, barely-functional fridge to his side. The buzz fills his mind, fills the silence as he works through the past ten minutes.

_Yann then Eliott then Eliott and Yann then lies lies lies then smiles and snow and shadows then here then fuzzy buzzing heartbeats._

Lucas digs his phone out of his pocket, scrolling to his messages with Manon, and fires off a new text.

_Comforter. I get out of work at 8._

_Door’s unlocked._

* * *

 

When Lucas met Manon, he didn’t really expect to be her friend.

Their first semester of college was rough, to say the least. Lucas wasn’t too far from home and he even had his best friend with him, but the transition to university, to this weird brand of in-between adulthood, hit him hard.

He shut himself off most days, content to sit around his room with Yann and sometimes Basile and Arthur, taking breaks from their video games to do homework instead of the other way around. And he went to his study sessions with Imane, meeting her in the corner of the campus coffee shop for a few hours each week to go over their latest biology lectures. He and Emma shared most of their shifts at the bookstore, and they would make idle chatter during the lulls; nothing too serious, perfect for a laugh between customers. Lucas would talk with Mika whenever he came knocking, claiming some sort of RA-required chat as an excuse to check in. Lucas appreciated it, of course, but Mika was Mika, and he could get a little suffocating at times.

Outside of those six, Lucas didn’t really talk to anyone else on campus, actually, until right before midterms hit.

Lucas wasn’t prepared for his first ever university exams season. Sure, he was studying constantly (Imane would kill him if he wasn’t), but the pace of it all was what sent him into a tailspin. Everything was due all at once and Lucas started spending his nights in the dorm’s study lounge, highlighters strewn about his workspace as he frantically made flashcards and drew molecular diagrams.

It was typically pretty empty up there, especially at such a late hour, with most people choosing to do work in the library instead. (A terrible decision, in Lucas’ opinion. The library was cold and dim and smelled like sweat and sadness. The study lounge, on the other hand, had plush couches and an ornate wooden fireplace and windows overlooking campus, giving him a clear view of the night sky whenever he looked up from his lab reports.)

So, Lucas was pretty surprised to find Manon pacing the lounge one night, cheeks splotchy and hands tugging at the hem of her sweater.

“Manon?” he ventured, stepping slowly into the room, bio textbook still cradled in his arms. “You alright?”

She whirled around, eyes wild and rimmed with red. “Shit, sorry, Lucas,” Manon stammered, swiping furiously at the tears spilling down her cheeks. “I’ll just – sorry.”

Shaking fingers by her sides, she started walking, speeding towards the lounge exit.

“Wait, Manon, hey,” Lucas said softly, catching her forearm as she passed to stop her from leaving. But as soon as the tips of Lucas’ fingers touched her shoulder, she crumbled into his arms with a heavy sob. “Manon?” he whispered, arms immediately encircling her in his hold.

Lucas panicked, eyes darting around the room until they landed on his comforter on the floor.

He had come down to the lounge with it draped around his shoulders, providing equal parts warmth and comfort as he prepared for the impending biology cram session. It must have fallen off when Manon had crashed into him.

“Here,” Lucas muttered, snatching the blanket from the ground and leading Manon to the nearest couch. He sat them down, curling the comforter around them and pulling Manon to his chest.

“I-I’m sorry, Lucas, I –“ she mumbled, voice jumping around her hiccups. Lucas shushed her, resting a tentative hand on her forearm.

“You’re okay,” he whispered, drifting his thumb over her shoulder. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

She nodded, cheek scratching against the fabric of Lucas’ hoodie.

They fell silent, but Lucas’ mind was anything but. He barely knew Manon and yet there he was, curled up with her under his duvet as her tears dripped onto his sweatshirt. Part of him wondered if she would eventually start talking and spill out whatever was causing her such pain (that part of him was largely made up of fear; Lucas could barely handle his own emotions, let alone Manon’s). Part of him itched to reach for his textbook, thinking of his rapidly dwindling time before his midterm at the end of the week.

A bigger part of him, though, was content to sit in silence and take a moment for himself. For Manon. To ease their minds amidst the whirlwind of their lives. It felt selfish, almost, to shut out the rest of the world, if only for a few minutes. He should be working; he should _always_ be working, always reaching and striving and trying doing achieving.

But then Manon let out a violent sob, curling deeper into the comforter, and Lucas’ mind was made up for him.

The minutes ticked by and Lucas’ chest ached whenever he felt Manon grip his shirt a little tighter or hiccup a little louder. A few of his own tears slipped down his cheeks, whether brought on by stress or silence or space, he didn’t know. He just let them fall and hoped Manon wouldn’t notice when he wiped them away.

It took a while, but eventually a calm settled over them and the sobs were few and far between.

“Thank you, Lucas,” Manon had whispered with a final sniffle, snapping through the comfortable silence of the room. She pushed herself off of his chest, and the comforter slipped slightly down her shoulder as she sat up.

“If you ever need to not talk again, I’m here, okay?” Lucas ventured, voice wavering slightly.

Manon sighed, reaching out to grip his hand. “Same to you.”

Lucas never meant for it to become a regular thing, but somehow, he and Manon found themselves turning to each other more and more throughout the rest of the semester. _(I need to not talk again. Can you come to my room in 10? And bring your comforter, please.)_

After a while, Manon started to talk, and Lucas talked back.

_You know Mika, your RA? He’s my cousin. I live with him, actually. My parents…_

_My mom is schizophrenic. She lives in a clinic in the city because my dad…_

_My ex, he had an older brother, and there was this party…_

_When I came out to Yann, he walked away, and I thought…_

It worked. _They_ worked, surprisingly enough. Something inside Lucas recognized itself within Manon, something dark and lonely and etched with sadness, heavy with the hurt of his family. They matched in the worst of ways, but at least they had each other.

Lucas is really happy he’s Manon’s friend.

* * *

 

After he finishes his shift, Lucas gets to Manon’s dorm to find the door already unlocked, as per usual, but when he pushes it open, voices filter in through the entryway.

“Manon?” Lucas calls, closing the door behind him and shrugging his backpack off his shoulders.

“Kitten!”

_Oh, shit._

Lucas walks fully into the dorm, dropping his bag at the foot of Manon’s bed as he surveys the scene in front of him. Mika stands in the center of the room, hands on his hips and clearly halfway through a rant of some sort, and Manon is curled up on her bed with bored eyes and sweater sleeves pulled halfway down her palms.

“Sorry, Lucas,” she starts, already shifting to pull back the covers for him. “I told him I had people coming over but he wouldn’t leave.”

“No, you told me _Lucas_ was coming over. There’s a difference,” Mika drawls. He throws himself onto the bed, plopping down right where Lucas was about to sit. “So, what is it this time, kitten?” he asks, propping his chin up on his fists. “School problems? Friend problems?” He gasps, lifting a conspiratorial brow and beckons Lucas closer. _“Boy problems?”_

“Go downstairs, Mika,” Manon scolds, waving the boy out of her room. “Aren’t you an RA? Don’t you have residents to attend to?”

“Yes, and one of them is right here,” he retorts, poking Lucas’ chest, much to the boy’s dismay.

“And the rest are downstairs,” Lucas says, unimpressed, rubbing at the center of his chest. (Why do people keep hitting and poking him today?) “What if someone has a crisis?”

“A crisis? Please, kitten, you lot are the easiest floor I’ve ever had.” He brushes Lucas off before turning back to him, eyes narrowing. “If anyone is going to have a crisis, it’s you and you know it.”

It pulls an eye roll out of Lucas, annoyance filtering through a frustrated sigh. (Mika is right, of course, but that doesn’t mean Lucas will accept it.)

“And kitten, if you’re _here_ , aren’t you having a crisis already?”

“Mika!”

Manon shoos Mika out of the room, giggling as he presses kisses to both Manon and Lucas’ cheeks before breezing through the door. It slams behind him, but Lucas waits until he hears the stairwell door close as well before walking over to Manon.

Lucas settles in under the baby blue comforter, dragging one of the pillows over to cushion his back.

“Are we talking today?” Manon asks as she drapes an arm around his shoulders.

“I think I need to.” Lucas shifts, letting his head fall into the crook of Manon’s neck.

He goes silent without any pushing and prodding from Manon, and Lucas is reminded of how grateful he is for her, how vital to his life she’s become.

He takes a deep breath, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth as he gathers up the courage to speak.

“I met a guy,” he breathes, so low he’s sure he’ll have to repeat it for Manon to hear.  

But she lets out a squeak of surprise instead, jostling Lucas a bit in her excitement.

“Where?” she asks.

“At the bookstore.”

“You work with him?”

“No, he —” Lucas cuts himself off, turning so that he’s sitting in front of Manon. He can’t meet her eyes, though, can’t let her hopeful gaze bore into his.

“He comes in pretty much every day,” he starts, twisting his hands in his lap. “Always during my shifts. I don’t know if he comes in otherwise, but I haven’t heard Emma or Imane talk about him, so…”

Manon nods, placing an encouraging hand on Lucas’ knee. “He comes in _just_ to visit you?” she prompts.

“No, he always buys a textbook.” (Well. Except that one time, with the guest lecture. But that’s just an outlier, an exception to the rule.  A one-time thing. Never happening again.)

“Shit.” Manon lets out a low whistle. “His professors are _still_ switching around their booklists? How’s that gone over at the store?”

“No, Manon, that’s the thing,” he says, stopping her short.

Lucas hesitates, rolling his tongue over the tips of his teeth as if that’ll help him find the words.

“I think he’s lying. Well, no, I _know_ he’s lying,” Lucas corrects. “If he wasn’t, he’d be taking six classes this semester.”

“Maybe he’s switched out of a few?” Manon suggests with a shrug.

“He’s never returned a book.”

Manon’s jaw drops just slightly, parting with surprise and confusion.

“Oh, well —”

“And today,” Lucas interrupts, “he came in to buy a book on the history of ballet and he said it was for his French Cinema class. But I looked at the syllabus he gave me and it was for some dance course. And anyway, the French Cinema class only has three required books and he has all of them. I _sold_ them to him myself.”

Manon shrugs, at a loss, her lips curling as she figures out what to say next.

“Maybe the professor _did_ change the syllabus,” she tries.

“No, I know this guy. He wouldn’t do that.” Lucas shakes his head, his word final. Beaumont’s an ass, but not _that_ kind of an ass.

Manon nods and purses her lips. “So, your boy _is_ lying.”

“Not my boy,” Lucas whispers, pained. ( _Not yet,_ he thinks before he can stop himself.) His head drops into his waiting hands, fingers curling into tufts of his hair. Manon’s hand instantly reaches out to smooth over his shoulder, thumb dragging over the tense muscles.

“It’s just — _why lie?_ They’re just textbooks!” Lucas’ head shoots up with his outburst, voice cracking along his pleas. “What, does he think I’d make fun of him for running errands for his friends?”

“I don’t know, Lucas.”

“It has to be something, Manon. It has to —”

Lucas freezes, face falling as the realization dawns on him.

“Oh, fuck,” he mutters, turning to Manon with wide eyes. “He’s dating someone, isn’t he? He’s dating someone and the books are for them and he knows I like him but he keeps coming in just to be nice because he’s nice Manon, he’s _so_ nice, but he’s lying about this to spare my feelings and —”

“Lucas, slow down!” Manon shouts, cupping his cheeks with her hands to steady him. Lucas is almost panting now, words blurring together with his speed, everything running out of him at 100 miles an hour.

Shit, he thought, he _really_ thought —

“Has he ever told you he was dating someone?”

Lucas gulps between harsh breaths. “No.”

“When he visits, do you talk or do you flirt?”

“Both.”

“Pick one.”

Lucas thinks of earlier that day, thinks of _do you like me?_ and _keep me around, Lucas_ and _I always come back._

“Flirt, mostly,” he decides.

“And he _only_ talks to you?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Manon scoffs, shaking her head. Lucas doesn’t quite catch what she whispers under her breath, but he thinks it sounds a lot like _dumbass._

“He likes you, you idiot.”

“Manon —”

“Lucas, listen to me,” she starts, taking his trembling hands in her own. “He’s coming to the bookstore, the _one place_ he knows he’ll find you, with excuses to stick around to talk to you and buy books he probably doesn’t even need. And this has been going on for how long now?”

“First week of the semester,” he admits with a shaky smile. (Purple smudges on pale fingers, beating hearts between the shelves, lingering glances sparking flares of hope.)

“A _month_ , Lucas? And you’re only telling me now?” she teases, throwing a light shove to his shoulder.

“Shut up,” he mutters, but there’s no heat to it. “I didn’t think it was going to turn into anything.”

“Lucas,” she begins, exasperated. “Why would he put _this much effort_ into someone he was just stringing along?”

“I…I don’t know, but —”

“Lucas.” Her hands are back on his cheeks, refocusing his gaze from his lap to her eyes. They burn, ice blue flames stark and serious. “Why haven’t you gone for it yet?”

“Because he’ll _leave_ , Manon.” It’s a whisper, really, because the thought of an empty bookstore and a silent shift is too painful to voice out loud. “Because he’ll get bored of me, or he’ll get scared off by all the shit with my family, and he’ll leave.”

His eyes slip shut, and Lucas untangles his hands to rest them atop Manon’s.

“Fuck, Manon, I like him _so much,”_ he chokes out. “And he’s just going to —"

“You don’t know that,” she cuts in, twisting her hand around to intertwine her fingers with Lucas’. Her grip is tight, like she’s pressing the words into Lucas’ skin. “You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“It’s what always happens, Manon.”

(He thinks of empty homes and hospital sheets and cold benches out in the school courtyard.)

“Maybe not with him,” Manon says, breaking Lucas out of his trance. “It’s okay to be scared, Lucas. It’s _good,_ even; that means you’re serious about this.” She brings their joined hands to her lap, resting them in the plush comforter. “But that doesn’t mean you should give up on something before it even has the chance to start.”

Lucas blinks and a tear drips down his cheek. It shocks him, pushing a breath he didn’t know he was holding out of his lungs. He doesn’t bother swiping the tear away, instead twisting around so that he’s back in his original spot, head resting in the crook of Manon’s neck.

“Thank you,” he whispers as Manon presses a kiss to the top of his head.

“Anytime.”

They fall back into silence, content in the bubble of Manon’s dorm room. It’s late now, and dusk has settled over campus. Emma and Alexia would be back any minute, if the low chatter in the hallway was any indication.

Manon sighs, whispering a small _Lucas?_ with a tap to his bicep. He tilts his head up to meet her wondering eyes.

“What’s his name?”

“Eliott,” Lucas answers immediately, and he’s smiling before he can even realize it.

She smirks and sits up a bit so that Lucas’ head falls back to her shoulder.

“Lucas and Eliott, Eliott and Lucas.” Manon hums, smoothing her hand over Lucas’ hair. “Sounds pretty good together, don’t you think?”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and thus begins the IV drip of angst
> 
> hope you enjoyed this one!! i'm v excited for what i have planned for chapter 7, so hopefully that one shouldn't take two and a half months lol 
> 
> (and once again, thank you for your patience with this chapter and all your encouraging messages and comments during the wait 💖💖)
> 
> kudos and comments are always welcome!! 
> 
> tumblr: [tawmlinsun](https://tawmlinsun.tumblr.com) // [ficpost](https://tawmlinsun.tumblr.com/post/188021509509/you-just-float-through-he-sees-the-boy-on-his)


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